Create your own Styrofoam Ice Cream Cones

Make your own Styrofoam ice cream cones as a fun accessory to the new "Nana Split's Ice Cream Parlor" North Pole Village house. You'll need wafer ice cream cones, 3" Styrofoam balls, hot glue, expanding foam insulation, and acrylic paint. Glitter is optional - and highly recommended!

• Prepare a work surface that can handle foam insulation and acrylic paint. You'll need a way to keep your cones standing upright while they dry, so find an empty egg carton. Also, latex gloves and paper towels for working with the insulation. (It sticks to everything it touches.)
• Be sure the area is well-ventilated for working with chemicals.

• Use hot glue to adhere a Styrofoam ball to an ice cream cone (the kind you normally eat). Don't worry about drips - they will look like melting ice cream. It's easier to apply the glue to the cone, and then attach the foam ball. Allow to dry (only takes a few seconds).
• Apply a thin stream of insulation foam all around the joining of the ball and cone, as you would icing on a cake. Make it a little lumpy and bumpy, too, like the extra ice cream that piles up around the edge of a scoop of ice cream. You can manipulate it a bit as you apply it. Allow to dry completely before painting (about 20 minutes).

• Use acrylic craft paints to color your ice cream cone in the flavor you want - strawberry, chocolate, vanilla - Neapolitan, if you're feeling ambitious.
• If you want to add glitter - and why would you not?! - we recommend using White Rain non-aerosol hair spray as your adhesive medium. Spritz on a nice coat of hairspray, add a generous dousing of glitter, and you've got a sparkling ice cream cone for your holiday display!
• Because the wafer cones are an edible product, you will have to store them in a sealed, water-tight plastic bag or box when not in use; with proper care, they should last several seasons.