We All Scream for Ice Cream

A couple of weeks ago, I had the grand idea of Alia opening up an ice cream stand, kind of like a lemonade stand, only with ice cream. The impetus for the thought came from our recent purchase of a hand-cranked old fashioned ice cream maker. I wanted to teach Alia how to make ice cream and I thought the crank using rock salt and ice was a more interactive way to teach her.

Alia's now at the age where she ask for this or that when we go shopping. Like I'm at Target and she points to a Hello Kitty purse and says "can I have that?" This was a recent occurrence and the yes the Hello Kitty purse was a real example. I decided to teach her two lessons at once: 1) in life you have to work hard for the things you want and 2) this is how ice cream is made. I told her if she wanted the purse (a whooping $9) that she would have to earn the money by opening up an ice cream stand.

We had just gotten the machine and not broken it in yet, so she was excited to make our first flavor: organic strawberry ice cream. Very simple, all it takes is milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, and fresh strawberries. Prior to the day we made the ice cream, I helped her make a banner for her ice cream "store." She painted the letters on the banner with my help and I made the tissue tassles. It came out so cute! I already had this old vintage table in my garage and glass jars. We bought the sprinkles, cones and cups.

We had the ice cream covered, the next question was where? As the saying goes in business, location, location, location. I knew our quiet little street would not lead to any business. I had the idea to ask the local little supermarket down our street on a major blvd if they would let us debut our little stand and they said yes! That turned out to be the best decision, we got the traffic of people going in and out of that little convenience store and in one hour and 45 min, we sold out!

 When I asked Alia how much she would make, she kept saying "twenty." I don't think she knew what that meant but liked the sound of it. I'm proud to say that we ended up making $40! Of course some people were super nice and tipped her more than the $1/ice cream.

 The most exciting part was going to Target the next week and purchasing that coveted Hello Kitty purse. I even made her hand the ice cream money to the cashier. She also got a $5 jumbo Dora coloring book. Total spent was $17 after tax. I told her the rest of the money would to to saving up for school :) We hope to do this 1-2 more times by summer's end with different seasonal flavors. I had a lot of fun teaching Alia about good food and business all at once. Can't wait to do it again!

ps. scroll all the way down for a video of the all the photos