Hi all!

Today we are coming at you with a DIY that we have wanted to make for a very long time. Addy’s ice cream maker!

Back when our Addy girl joined our crew, I was too injured to even introduce her, or to make her new clothes, or to do much of anything with the dolls, really.

Now that I am less injured, let me first introduce you to our beautiful girl! Adelaide (Addy) Mary Walker! You can see more of her over on our Instagram too! @fim_studios

I even made her a new dress as she came without clothes and her hair was in a terrible state. Once we tamed it and put the braids in, we decided to just leave it alone as her hair is quite delicate.

Onto the tutorial! Ever since we saw it, we just knew that we had to make it! The thing is, I kept putting restrictions on myself all the time, putting it off until I could find the right ice cream bowls, for instance, and then putting it off because we didn’t have doll ice cream or pie.

But we are no longer stuck in that mindset! Now we are simply making any ol’ thing we want, whenever we want, perfection be darned, and a cute little ice cream bucket is what we want! 😝

So here’s what you need:

Soup can and lid

Jumbo popsicle sticks

Regular popsicle stick

Dowel rod

Piece of scrap cardboard

Cardboard tube

Wood stain (we used coffee grounds)

Two large paper clips

Three round wooden beads

Black electrical tape

Hot glue

Exacto blade (parental supervision)

Finishing nail and hammer

Black fine tip marker

Let’s get started! The first thing to do is clean the soup can and remove the label. Next is measuring and cutting the jumbo popsicle sticks. We used five sticks. We used scissors to cut off the ends and an Exacto knife to score and cut the sticks in half.

It wasn’t really an exact science. Lol!

Now begin hot gluing the sticks around the soup can. The sticks should be flush with the top of the can. We used nine of the sticks for this. Save the tenth one.

As you can see, the popsicle sticks don’t cover the entire can. This is fine. Just get parental supervision and an Exacto knife to cut off the bottom of the can.

If you wanted to skip this part, simply cut your popsicle sticks to fit your can. We just found that cutting the sticks in half didn’t waste so much of the stick.

Next, take the lid of your soup can and hot glue it to the bottom of your bucket to cover the sharp edges.

Now we will add the handle.

Straighten the two large paper clips.

Twist the ends together and bend to form a handle.

Now thread three large wood beads onto the middle to cover up where you twisted.

Using the hammer and nail, punch holes in each side of your can where you want the handle to be.

Insert the ends of your handle into the holes.

We used hot glue to secure the handle, but we wanted it to still move, so as the glue dried, we moved the handle up and down. This way it didn’t fully secure the handle but it still keeps it in place. You can also use pliers to bend the end of the paper clip into a small loop so it can’t slip back through the hole.

As you can see in the picture above, we used coffee grounds to stain the popsicle sticks. I just used one of my used coffee machine pods.

Rub the wet grounds directly onto the sticks. If you have wood stain which we did not, then you will get a similar result. You can also use watered down brown acrylic paint. Set your bucket aside.

Next we will make the crank and the inner chamber. Using the remaining jumbo popsicle stick half, round the ends with scissors.

Then take your dowel and cut a short piece from the end. Hot glue the short dowel piece to the center at the top of the Jumbo popsicle stick and a longer dowel piece to the center at the bottom of the stick. This gives the illusion that the rod passes right through.

Cut the long dowel rod so that it fits in your bucket. The dowel rod should just touch the bottom of your bucket and the jumbo popsicle stick should rest flat on top.

Next, take the cardboard tube and using an Exacto knife, cut a piece a bit shorter than your bucket.

Trace and cut a cardboard circle for the lid.

Now assemble the crank. Use a regular popsicle stick for the arm of the handle and another piece of dowel or a bead for the tip of the handle.

Poke a hole at the centre of the cardboard disc with a pencil and slide it on the end of your dowel rod.

Now is a good time to paint. Paint the dowel rod, cardboard disc and handle arm silver. The jumbo popsicle stick and the tip of the handle can be stained in the same way as the bucket.

You should also paint your cardboard tube part silver. We forgot this step and ended up having to paint after it was fully assembled which was more difficult.

Now you have two options. You can either leave it at that, stick your cardboard tube in your ice cream bucket, drop the crank handle in on top and call it done, or you can attach them. We wanted ours to stand alone as all one piece, so we attached them.

Cut another circle of cardboard.

Hot glue the circle inside the bottom of the cardboard tube. Place hot glue on the the end of the dowel rod and insert the crank handle into the cardboard tube, securing the dowel rod to the centre of the cardboard circle at the bottom.

You should now have something that looks like this. The cardboard circle lid moves up and down freely on the dowel to add ‘ingredients’ to the cardboard barrel.

Place the crank with attached ice cream chamber into your ice bucket. It should rest easily inside.

Next, decorate your bucket. We used some black electrical tape to make stripes and a permanent marker to add the words.

And you’re done!!

How cute is that!! We are so in love with our new DIY Ice Cream Maker! Addy loves it too!

I hope that you enjoyed our craft today! Don’t forget to check out our Instagram @fim_studios for more pics of our Addy and her ice cream bucket!

Leave a comment below!

❤️❤️❤️