Blogger / 3 August, 2026 / Nanny Anita

Ice Cream Making Busy Bag

Years ago, I made a cupcake busy bag for my little charges, they one loved playing with it.  As a side note one time, they ended up sharing it with some kids on the table next to them whose father happened to be a world-famous British singer, who mentioned that he really enjoyed playing with it too! Anyway, NC is a little young to play with that cupcake busy bag, the pieces are slightly too small and fiddly right now.  Instead, I have made her an ice cream making busy bag instead.

Make sure you follow my busy bag board on Pinterest for more ideas.  Don’t forget to save the pin for later.

To make your own ice cream making busy bag you will need:

• Cardboard
• Milk bottle tops
• Pom poms
• Paper
• Coloured dot stickers
• Hot glue gun
• Laminator (optional)
• Sticky back plastic/clear tape (optional)
• Child friendly tweezers

On a piece of cardboard draw the outline of your ice cream.  You need to make sure that you can fit 6 bottle lids onto where the ice cream will go.  I painted my cardboard, but that is certainly not something you have to do.

Before I glued my bottle lids down, I used sticky back plastic (you could also use clear packing tape) to wrap the cardboard.  I did this for two reasons; firstly, NC is a picker.  She will pull the cardboard apart.  The second reason is to make it slightly water resistant.  Using it on tables at restaurants means there is a good chance that water will be spilled on it.  Having this wrapped just means that it won’t get ruined the moment any drinks get on it.

Use a hot glue gun to stick the bottle lids onto the ice cream picture.

To make the orders, I cut A5 index cards in half and used coloured dot stickers to show the pattern that the pom poms should go in.  When they were all finished, I laminated them.

Your little one doesn’t have to use the order cards to play with this.  They can simply make their own patterns.  The cards just add another layer to their play.  You could even add a price to the cards and have some pretend money for them to use.  This ice cream making busy bag goes from quite simple play with toddlers, to more involved imaginative play for older ones.

If you enjoyed this ice cream making busy bag, be sure to check out my cupcake busy bag, Mr Potato Head busy bag, and dot to dot busy bag.

Pin for later: