I mentioned the Spotted PiG Collection Carnival we had for my job recently. There were a lot of opportunities for me to do creative arts and craftsy type stuff. This was a very fun departure from my usually number crunching and budget watching.
One of the projects was a cupcake tower. We served Sprinkle’s Cupcakes at the event, and knew they simply had to be displayed in a fun colorful way. Well, our events staff did a little research and found out that buying a big cupcake tower would cost us around $50. That deosn’t exactly break the bank, but hey, who wants to pay for something we could make at a fraction of the price?
I happily volunteered to take on the task of building a cupcake tower. I scoured Pinterest for ideas. I had something in mind, but wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted. I thought about working with glass, but didn’t like the chances of if shattering into pieces. I thought about using plastic, too, but wasn’t thrilled with cheap look that might come of plastic. I even had the idea to use cardboard and Styrofoam, but discovered that the materials for a tower the size I wanted would end up to be about the same price as buying one.
So, I settled on wood. I went to Home Depot and bought two of the least expensive sheets of smooth pressed board that I could find. It was quite thin, about ¼ of an inch thick, but totally smooth. Each sheet cost about $3.50 and they were 28 inches by about 45 inches. Then, I picked out a 4×4 beam, and found a worker to cut off about a dozen 3.5 inch pieces. By the way, 4x4s are actually not 4 inches by 4 inches! Because of the way the wood is processed, they are 3.5×3.5, hence the measurement I went with for my cuts. I wanted to end up with perfectly square blocks. The whole beam cost about $6 (the cuts were free this time, but sometimes they charge, I guess it depends on the mood of your worker). Finally, I picked up two tubes of epoxy glue at about $4 each. So, with all these materials, I spent $21.
I decided to go ahead and make the tower square. For a few minutes, I considered making it round, but figured squares would be easier to cut. Plus, I liked the idea of this cupcake tower looking a little different. So many that I found were round and the few square ones I saw seemed to have so much more personality.
For the size of each tier, I started with four inches for the smallest. This gave the slightest lip of the top tier over the top block. And then, I added six inches to the next square. This allowed for three inches all around and I figured that would be enough for a row of cupcakes all around. That means, the sizes of the tiers were 4×4, 10×10, 16×16, 22×22 and 28×28.
Once I drew out the squares that needed to be cut using a ruler and a pencil, I borrowd my dad’s jigsaw and got cutting. It was actually incredibly easy and super fast. But, something to keep in mind if you are ever doing a project that requires exact measurements, the jigsaw loses about an 8th of an inch where your cuts are. I didn’t anticipate this, but it also didn’t matter that much for this project. Also, it creates a ton of dust! Don’t do this project in flip flops on a warm day, your feet will be itchy until you take a shower!
Once I had all my pieces cut to size, I used some white house paint I had left over from a different project. I guess this technically could make the total price of the project higher, but I don’t count it because I think so many people have leftover paint laying around their garage.
I painted my boards with two even coats. Then, I used the epoxy glue and went nuts. I really laid it on thick, a nice big gob between each block and board. You can see from the picks that I pretty much just eyeballed the placement. I don’t mind how it turned out. But I guess you can measure if you want to be particular.
Once the tower had dried, I added a bit of green and orange ribbon with a hot glue gun. I figure if I ever want a different color, I can use either a hair drier or even an iron to warm it up enough to remove the ribbon, and then I can add something else.
The tower was finally finished. Of course, it wasn’t truly complete until it was covered in Sprinkles Cupcakes! And keep your eyes open, you’ll see it again soon. One of the ladies in my office is graduating with a masters degree next weekend and she has hired me to make the celebratory cake. We are doing cupcakes and this tower will be put to work displaying them.
And here’s a bonus shot of the cupcakes still in the box. I must say, these are amongst the best cupcakes I have ever had! So good.
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