Make Your Own Cupcake Stand!

Cupcakes are all the rage these days. And what better way to display them than on a whimsical cupcake stand? Most cupcake stands are pretty expensive, though, and only hold a few.

For my cousin's rehearsal dinner, I was asked to make a whole lot of cupcakes. My aunt and I got the idea to make our own cupcake stand, and it looked great!

It looks complicated to make, but it's actually really easy, and you only need a few inexpensive supplies.




Step One: Get your supplies together. For this three-tier one, you'll need two large pieces of foam core, newspaper, a pencil, an exacto knife (the thinner the blade, the better), colorful paper (we bought about 10 individual sheets at a craft store), colorful ribbon, a glue stick, and a hot glue gun. You'll also need a large work space.

Step Two: Cut your foam core into three large circles. To get a perfect circle, you need to make a square. My aunt is one of the craftiest people I know and has a degree in fine art, so she was the perfect person to teach me how to do this craft with. Take a piece of newspaper, and fold it into quarters. Using a ruler. measure a straight line out from the folded corner, and make an arc. Cut out this arc, and trace it on the foam core four times, to make a circle. Cut the circle out carefully, using the exacto knife. You'll need to make three circles, one for each tier.

Here's what the newspaper arc will look like.

Here are our three tiers.

Step Three: You'll need to make the columns that hold the tiers up. This was the trickiest part for us. Using the foam core scraps, cut four rectangles, about four inches high and three inches wide. Cut out a very thin  rectangle sliver in each of them, and push two of the rectangles together, and level them off. When finished, it will look like a + if viewed from the top. Make two of these.

Measure the center of the bottom two tiers, and make a small  to mark them. Also, measure the center of the bottom of the top two tiers, which will make it easier to put them all together later on.  Then, hot glue the columns to the tiers, making sure that they are stable. Don't glue the tiers together, yet!

Step Four: Get out your colorful paper.

Using your newspaper circles, cut out the paper to fit each foam core. This time, use one piece of paper for each arc you cut out. The paper will be too small to cut out a whole circle (with the exception of the top tier), so just cut out four arcs for each tier.

Cut the pointy end of each arc like this, so it fits around the column. Use a glue stick to secure it to the foam core. Cover all the tiers in paper, cutting off any excess. Next, measure the rectangles and cover them in paper as well. I'll do the math for you: you'll need 16 rectangle pieces, cut to size.

Step Five:

Measure ribbon to put around the edge of each circle. You can also just do it as you go, and cut off the excess. Hot glue it to the edge, but be careful: we burned ourselves about 1000 times. You'll have to work fast to secure the ribbon before the hot glue dries.

Next, measure ribbon to put on the edges of the columns.

Et voila! You're done! Now stack that baby up with cupcakes, and enjoy!