Make Your Own Retro Ice Cream Stand

For a while now I have been receiving requests to make more buildings that would fit in with my Mid-Century Modern House. The house tends to be one of my most popular downloads as well as a best selling DIY kit. There are other places to find free Mid-Century Modern house patterns, however. Lucy designed a house with a butterfly roof that you can find on Paper Glitter Glue, where she includes both SVG and PDF files. Miss Mandee also has a free SVG and PDF for a Mid-Century House on her website. Be aware that you will need to adjust both patterns to be the same scale as my patterns. Lucy’s pattern is designed in a smaller scale (closer to 00), while Miss Mandee’s is a larger scale (closer to 0 Scale.)

Another website that has free PDF patterns for Mid-Century Modern Houses is Retro Renovation, a site “started in 2008 to research and share products and inspiration to remodel, renovate, and decorate your house in authentic mid century style.” Unfortunately the site stopped publishing in 2001, though it remains online for historical information. At one time the site had PDF patterns for 13 Putz-Style Mid-Century Modern houses, but some have been retired. All that remain are patterns for 6 houses and a Shasta Trailer. I believe these patterns were also designed in a larger scale (closer to O.) Refer back to my blog post A Question of Scale to determine how much to resize your patterns.

In addition my Detached Garage would work well with any of the Mid-Century Modern Houses.

I still am interested in designing additional Mid-Century Modern houses. For example, my neighbor has a very unique Butterfly Roof house that I have been eyeing as inspiration. But it is clear the dearth of patterns is for shops for your Retro Village. A search of real building flooded me with ideas. With how hot it has been outside, however, a Retro Ice Cream Stand seemed perfect.

I quickly discovered that there used to be a chain of Ice Cream Stands called Dairy Isle. From the Roadside Architecture website: “The Dairy Isle chain was established in Wooster, OH in 1951. These ice cream stands featured giant ice cream cones piercing the roof at the front of the building. The building design was created by Clarence S. Shank and patented in 1952 and 1957. The buildings were shipped as prefabricated kits and assembled on-site by the owner. There were more than 160 locations built. More than 40 locations represented at this page still exist. While most of them were apparently built in Ohio, there are plenty of examples elsewhere in the Northeast, Midwest, and a few in the South.”

Most of the Dairy Isle buildings that are still in existence are no longer called Dairy Isle. My favorite name change was to Coneheads, so I used that for my model.

This Is How You Make The Retro Ice Cream Stand

Size of the finished building as designed will be approximately 3 1/2″ W x 6″ D x 5 1/4″ H. These measurements include the height of the cone, but do not include the size of the base. I consider this a beginner pattern.

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The Retro Ice Cream Stand Specific Materials

Favorite Materials Supply List

• Cardstock, Cardboard (Kraft Board), 30 point Chipboard, or Aluminum Can – your choice!
• Translucent Vellum or pictures to go in the windows.
• Glue – If using cardstock, I suggest Bearly Art Glue or Art Glitter Glue. For aluminum cans, I use Aleene’s The Ultimate Glue. For cardboard or chipboard houses, I like Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue. I put it in a bottle with a thin metal tip.
• If using chipboard or kraft colored cardboard, start with a base of either Liquitex white gesso or black gesso as primer.
• Decorative papers (optional – for cardboard.)
• Multi-surface satin finish acrylic paints or Ranger Distress Inks or Distress Crayons (for cardboard or cardstock.) Both the FolkArt and the Craftsmart paint brands work equally well. If you use distress inks, make sure they dry thoroughly before handling the pieces or you will have stained fingers. I speak from experience.
• Glitter Gel Pens. I love these for coloring in small details. The company also carries another set with metallic, neon and fluorescent gel pens.
• Tim Holtz Texture Paste or Tim Holtz Distress Grit Paste to make brick or stone chimneys, walls or sidewalks. I actually prefer grit paste as it makes my stonework look rougher or more craggy than texture paste.
• Stencils to use with the texture or grit paste to make stone or brickwork. Be careful to buy or make stencils that fit the scale of your building. For brickwork I often use the Honey Bee Salvaged Bricks stencil or the Stretcher Bricks stencil I cut myself. For stonework I usually use either the Chimney Stone stencil I made myself, or the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Mini Set #28 Stencils. 
• Bone folder (optional, but strongly suggested) A bone folder helps you make sharp folds when you are using cardstock or cardboard. I have found it even helps with aluminum cans. I now use my bone folder to deepen score lines all the time.
• A Cutting Machine like a Cricut Maker or Cricut Explore 
• A hand-held craft blade like an X-Acto knife or Cricut TrueControl Knife. I also have a hand-held knife called the Excel Knife. It is nice in that it uses the cheaper craft blades, but the blade doesn’t work its way loose like the blade in my X-Acto knife often does. You will also need a cutting mat or a glass media mat to cut on.
• Metal Edged Ruler with cork backing
• An Embossing Machine and folders.

Steps to Make The Retro Ice Cream Stand

• Download the Retro Ice Cream Stand pattern from A Cottage in the Forest library
• Import the Retro Ice Cream Stand pattern into your design software
• Cut out the pattern – I use my Cricut Maker.
• Fold the building. Glue on Window Frames and the acetate windows.
• Glue in the Print and Cut store background
• Assemble the building
• Glue in bottom insert
• Add the roof
• Add the ice cream cone and signs
• Make base and decorate as desired

How To Make The Retro Ice Cream Stand

Download the Retro Ice Cream Stand Pattern

Download the Retro Ice Cream Stand pattern from A Cottage in the Forest Library. It is design #75. Don’t forget to unzip it. The pattern is available in multiple formats – as a SVG (scalable vector graphics), DXF (drawing eXchange format), as a studio3 file for Silhouette, or as PDF file. I now include a 1″ square in with all of my SVG, DXF and Studio3 files. Scale the pattern so that the square is 1″ to make the building in the size it was designed. Of course the wonderful thing about SVG files is that you can easily scale them to make your building whatever size you would like.

Choose between whether you want a regular back with the light hole at the bottom of the building (this is the option I make below) or if you want to use the Putz Back, where the light hole is in the back of the building.

Import the Retro Ice Cream Stand Pattern into Design Software

As of this blog post, a Cricut Design Space update in 2021 broke the attached score and draw lines. You will need to go through the pattern in Design Space and change the score lines to Score and then attach them to their object. I am still designing so that if some day Design Space fixes their problem, score lines and drawings import as actual score lines and drawings attached to their object, though I have pretty much lost hope of that ever happening.

Here is a great tutorial from Jennifer Maker’s website on attaching score lines. I make all of my score lines red so that you can tell that they are intended to be score lines.

Cut Out Your Pattern

Cut out all of your cardstock, Kraft Board or aluminum can pieces using my pattern. If you are using cardboard and don’t intend to paint and glitter, I suggest visiting Lucy Foxworth’s blog at Paper Glitter Glue where Lucy explores multiple other ways to decorate your cardboard house.

I include a Print and Cut background for your store if you want to use clear acetate windows instead of vellum.

Refer to the PDF I included with the SVG pattern for the name of each of the pieces you need to cut out. If you are using cardstock and don’t intend to paint and glitter the building, you can texture your pieces using your embossing machine and texture folders if desired.

Fold the building front and back and the window trim on the score lines. Do not fold on the side tabs of the back, as those score lines are for placements.

Glue the trim onto just the front of the building, leaving the sides of the trim unattached.

Fold back the sides of the front and and glue down the roof tabs.

Glue down the side window trims. Glue in the acetate windows into the inside of the building.

Glue In the Print and Cut Store Background

I include a print and cut file with an interior ice cream store scene for if you use acetate windows . I made the scene by combining images I found using my subscription to Creative Fabrica. I also include a blank svg in case you want to make your own. If you use my scene, the file is called Ice_Cream_Scene.png. Upload it into Cricut Design Space using the Complex File Type.

On the next screen click “Apply & Continue” without changing any of the options. On the Select Upload Type screen select “Print then Cut Image”.

Once you have imported the scene onto your canvas, you will need to change the size. I tried and tried, but could not get the png image to import in exactly the right size. Click on the Ice Cream scene and change the size to 3.38″ wide by 2.23″ high.

Glue the scene into the building right behind the side windows.

Assemble the Building

Glue the back of the building to the front, using the score lines for placement. Glue down the roof tabs and attach the Door Trim.

Glue in Bottom Insert

Check the fit of the bottom insert piece, adjusting any of the fold lines as necessary. You may need to trim the corners. Align the notch in the bottom insert with the door. Glue in the bottom insert piece now as it will help to help to stiffen and square the walls of the building. Once I know the fit is right, I run the needle tip of my glue bottle between the bottom insert and the sides, making sure each side is glued securely before moving on to the next.

Add the Roof

Fold the upper roof piece. Glue the tabs to make a rectangle. Fold again and glue the edges together.

Glue the lower roof onto the underside of the rectangle, aligning both slots on one edge. Glue the roof onto the building.

Add the Ice Cream Cone and Signs

Before cutting the cones decide if you want score or pen lines. I used a Cricut pen to draw lines on kraft colored Kraft Board. Glue the cones to each side if the middle piece, then glue on the ice cream.

Insert the cone through the slit in the roof and use a thin line of glue at the juncture of the cone and the underside of the roof. If you used thick Kraft Board like I did, it is a tight fit inserting the cone into the slot. I ran my craft blade Up and down the slot a few times to make it a bit wider/ looser.

Add signs. I cut the “Coneheads” letters out of vinyl on my Cricut and applied them to the sides of the cone. I printed various other ice cream related signs I found using a Google search onto a 4 x 6″ label and cut them out to place on the windows. You can also print them out on regular paper and glue to the windows.

Make Base and Decorate as Desired.

There are so many fun decorations you can use for an ice cream shop! I am going to make the picnic table and garbage cans from the 3D Take-Out Embellishments to add to my ice cream stand.

Enjoy making the Retro Ice Cream Stand yourself! I would love to see your finished design. Please share a photo of it with me by emailing me at Jackie@acottageintheforest.com

MAKER’S GALLERY FOR THE RETRO ICE CREAM STAND

FREE CUT FILES & PATTERN FOR THE RETRO ICE CREAM STAND

Download the Retro Ice Cream Stand Pattern

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Get the password for the library with the free Retro Ice Cream Stand pattern and SVG/DXF/PDF/studio3 files here by filling out this form:

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