An Easter Ice Cream Party (Free Retro Ice Cream Printables)

Happy Easter!

Kana here.  It's really rare that all of us get together for a party like this, but we said we'd have an ice cream party last week, and so we did.  It's a little cold, but when has that stopped us before?

We have some other snacks, but really, we're just showing off all the ice cream that we got recently.

It helped that the human finally made us an ice cream freezer for all that ice cream we bought.  We didn't want to keep it out because it always looked like it was going to melt, and as nice as the ice cream truck is, it didn't have a freezer.   What an oversight, huh?

The freezer is made entirely of foam core, with a sliding clear doors on top so you can see what ice cream is inside.  All the ice cream not in holders are in retro wrappers (download here).  The freezer is decorated with some vintage signs.  There's more storage under the top shelf through a door in the back.

Lily:  Here's your milkshake.

In other news, Lily is not allowed to serve ice cream anymore...

Kana:  What are those bottles and
what did you put in here?

Lily:  Nothing...
(The grey one is Veritaserum...)

For the record, the ice cream truck is not a potions lab and NOR SHOULD IT BE.

(Knowing Lily and our human, that truck is going to become a mobile laboratory...)

Shepard:  So, pre-packaged commercial
ice cream it is!

To the ice cream freezer!

Now, more about the new freezer in excruciating detail:  it's 8.5" tall, 9" wide, and 5" deep.  The actual storage part is only 7.75" tall, and is divided into two sections.

The top section has a clear plastic front and sliding doors on top.  It's 3.5" tall, which makes it just tall enough for the popsicle holders that come with the OG ice cream truck.  The doors slide in both directions so you can get all the ice cream in and out.

For more storage, the second section is accessible through the pair of plastic doors in the back.  It opens up to a 2.5" deep shelf for the shorter things (like the sundaes).  The two shelves in the back are approximately 2" tall each, and the front portion is a full 4" tall for the milkshake glasses.

And inside, we have all the ice cream still in its packaging (and thus no risk of potion roulette.  Thanks Lily...).  These are all 1950s-1960s vintage wrappers, resized to fit the ice cream that comes with OG ice cream truck.  OK, the cyclone logo is probably more recent.

Retro Ice Cream Wrappers

You can print these on normal paper (and for the drumstick, you want normal printer paper), but to get the right texture for the bags, you can print them on tissue paper.  The human used the tissue paper that came inside the AG boxes from the last batch of toys.

Get a piece of tissue paper roughly 10"x7.5" (a little smaller is ok), and tape it to a piece of printer paper or cardstock.  You'll want to tape it down around all the sides or it will cause a paper jam.  (Also, a laser jet printer will melt scotch tape.  The human learned that one the hard way.)  Then load the paper in as you normally would, and the printer should print on the tissue paper.  The human hasn't tested with an inkjet printer, so it might not work as well.  Ink absorbency with different papers isn't an issue with laser jet printers.

Ice cream sandwiches and cyclones

All sorts of popsicles!

Twin pops!

First Day of Spring

Kana here.  It is officially the first day of spring, never mind the incoming blizzard tonight.  New England weather is wonderful, isn't it?

That, however, will not keep me from showing off my new dress.  Technically, it's not new.  It's been hanging on the rack in the back room for the last six months because I didn't want to wear pale pink in the middle of winter.  This was the human's first attempt at playing with kimono silk, and had spent about six months of the 'works in progress' pile before she finally finished it.

The dress is made from dimple-dyed kimono silk (shibori in Japanese) in pale pink using a very modified version of the LJ Aspen dress pattern.  Turns out the texture of the silk makes it very unsuitable for gathering, so the human omitted the underskirt entirely and narrowed the overskirt to avoid gathers.  The green satin sash with tiny woven rosebuds makes a nice accent, I think.

Since Easter is next week, I convinced the human to make some appropriately themed books for us. 

So what did we get?  Beatrix Potter bunny books!  'The Tale of Peter Rabbit', 'The Tale of Benjamin Bunny', and 'The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies'.  Each book has the complete story with all of the original illustrations.  They're super cute, aren't they?

You can get a copy of these patterns at the human's Etsy store here.

At some point, Samantha and Nellie are going to start their massive scrapbooking project, which means the rest of us have been collecting cute cards to past into said scrapbooks.  This time, the human raided the New York Public Library's digital collection for this set of antique Victorian (and some Edwardian) Easter cards.

Printable Victorian Easter Cards

There's 20 different designs in all, the cards are 1"x1.5".  They'd look super cute if you clip them to a string to make a garland.  (We may try that next week.  Easter ice cream party, anyone?)

The Harvard Museum of Natural History

Beetles!

Kana here.  This past weekend was super eventful here.  For one thing, the human finally found the elusive Our Generation sewing set.  And that comes with a real pattern and enough fabric to make a real dress.  We haven't tried that out yet, but that's been added to the to-do list.

And we (Sam and me) went to the Harvard Museum of Natural Science.  It has so many specimens in such a tiny space!

Hello, giant armadillo.

And dinosaur fossils!

What the museum is known for is its collection of GLASS flowers.  Unfortunately, the main exhibit is closed but there were a few small samples out.

The coral and anemones are also glass!

Sam wanted to see the exhibit halls with all the taxidermy animals.  (I found them super creepy....)

It's a margay cat!

Python?  Python.

I hear red pandas are cute.

Yes, that is a real whale skeleton.

The human's favorite place was actually the geology hall.  We have plenty of amethyst at home, but nothing quite this large or this pretty!

Hipster Food Truck

I know, I know, the human posts twice in a week.  The world is ending.

In other news, we got the ice cream truck!  And then the human and I discovered that it makes a much better hipster food truck than an ice cream truck because there was no giant chest freezer to put all the ice cream in.  We foresee a crafting session in the future related to this pressing problem.

It makes a pretty good concession/snack truck with a combination of eraser and OG food pieces.  The space for the ice cream tubs is great for putting individual foods, and the sink can be stocked with ice for drinks.  The back counter is for condiments and the menu.

It also makes an adorable bakery truck.  The little compartments are perfect for all the tiny OG cookies and s'mores and macarons.  The food on the back counter is so precariously balanced...

And this is a different cat the than usual photobomber.  She's the scary black cyber-kitty with laser eyes.  We love her anyways.