Beer cake

Okay, this is a fun one! My boyfriend turned 30 on Valentine's Day and I decided to make a beer cake as a decoration at the party I was throwing for him. The party was going to be at a bar, so I found this to be a very appropriate decoration. This is a very simple craft, so don't be intimidated!

Materials needed: cardboard cutouts measuring 8, 10 and 12 inches in diameter (one for each tier), 30 beers of your choice (I used tall boy canned beer, but this would work with regular cans, too. I think you could probably use bottles, as well, but might need some extra support between tiers), assorted materials to decorate.

I used a large cardboard box from one of my many weekly amazon deliveries to cut out the cardboard bases for the tiers. I am not the best at circle drawing/cutting, so my cutouts are far from perfect.

I decided to wrap the cardboard tier cut outs in tissue paper to add some color to the beer cake. You could also use wrapping paper, construction paper, or even paint to  add color to the cardboard pieces.

I alternated colors for each tier.

For tier one I used 11 cans.

Tier 2 was made up of 12 cans. You could also put the extra 3 cans I used in the middle on the first tier. In order to truly use 30 beers, I found you have to hide a few in there.

The top tier is made up of 7 beers. 6 go around the outside and 1 in the middle. 

I used some yellow fabric to wrap the top tier. It is tied in the back, which also helps keep the top tier together for easy transportation. I hot glued the bow on the front of the top tier. I printed out the "30 beers for 30 years" and used some black and blue card stock to mount it. I hole punched the card stock and ran a yellow ribbon through it to tie it to the second tier. I used some blue card stock to cut out a 3 and a 0. Using craft sticks, I hot glued the number cut outs to the front center beer. You can have a lot of fun decorating this, as there is no wrong way to do it! I just used stuff I already had to decorate mine. 

Happy beer cake making!

P.S. One of these days I'll have a dedicated craft area in our house so all of my photos won't be on my wooden floors!

Bridal Shower Cake

More "wedding season" appropriate crafts: a bridal shower cake!

Essentially, this is the bridal shower version of a diaper cake. If you have to give a gift, why not make it fun?!

For this bridal shower cake, I picked all items on the bride's registry at Bed Bath & Beyond. Here are the items I used: Oxo rotating utensil holder, 9.5" Pyrex pie dish, Bamboo utensil set, Calphalon dish cloth (wasabi), 2 Calphalon plaid kitchen towels (wasabi), purple silk ribbon, and a 4x4 box from the dollar tree.

The box from the dollar store was a blue gift box that came with a sparkly covered top. I had it in my gift wrapping box and it was the perfect size to hold the utensil holder at the second tier. You could use a lot of different things to do this - a cylindrical piece of foam, a few toilet paper rolls rubber banded together - be creative!

To build this, I took the dollar tree 4x4 box and turned it upside down on the middle of the pie dish. I then began wrapping the kitchen towels around the box to hide it. I took all the tags off - I felt confident doing this since the items were on her registry. I really only did it so that the end result looked cleaner, you can choose to leave them on. I wrapped 2 kitchen towels around the first tier and secured them with the purple ribbon you can see in the photo. Then, i stacked the utensil holder on top of the upside down dollar tree box and  filled it with the bamboo utensils. I folded the dish towel like a fan, and propped it up behind the utensils. 

The final thing I did was use a basket bag to wrap this up and keep everything held together. I recommend the one from the dollar tree - it works just fine and it's only a dollar!

I think I spent $40 on this gift overall (with the utilization of some bed bath and beyond coupons) and I think the presentation really classes up the gift. It also made it easier to buy a random selection of some of the lesser priced items on their registry and still be able to pull it all together nicely. 

Happy Bridal Shower-ing!

Monkey Diaper Cake

I've been dying to make a diaper cake. I think this is a gift that every crafter should master, so when I found out my cousin was pregnant I knew immediately that I would make one for her shower. I did a lot of research on pinterest - I wanted to find the perfect design for this diaper cake. Many diaper cakes you see have many little shampoo bottles, pacifiers, etc. tucked in with the diapers, but most of the ones I saw like that, as beautiful as they were, they looked too cluttered. Also, I was going to have to travel 5 hours with the diaper cake, so I was worried about all the stuff falling out. I ultimately decided on a very simple design.

What I used: 36 pack of seventh generation diapers from Target, 3 inch turquoise ribbed ribbon, 1.5 inch purple silk ribbon, a half yard of fabric, a CoCaLa stuffed monkey, ribbons, a bag of assorted rubber bands, hot glue.

Making a diaper cake is actually very easy. I bought a pack of 36 diapers and I ended up with a handful leftover. I started by rolling the diapers and rubber banding them. I placed a paper towel roll in the middle and began grouping the rolled up diapers in circles around it. I think I did about 4 circles for the bottom tier. I grouped each circle of diapers with a large rubber band, until I got to the largest circle around the bottom tier. I didn't have a rubber band big enough for the largest circle, so I used a scrap piece of thin ribbon to hold it together. You build the second and third tiers the same way - using rubber bands to hold each of the circles of rolled up diapers. The paper towel roll in the middle helps hold the tiers together. You can also use a useful item like baby shampoo or baby lotion instead of a paper towel roll.

Once the tiers were all built, I began with the decoration. I planned to use both fabric and ribbon to decorate the diaper cake to have a little bit of a difference in textures and patterns. The fabric brought a nice pattern to the cake and the ribbon really classed it up. I cut the fabric in a width to almost completely cover the rolled up diapers. To secure the fabric, I hot glued the ends together. I did the same thing with the turquoise ribbon. I didn't want to tie it because I wanted it to look seamless.

The last step to this diaper cake was to secure the plush monkey to it. I wrapped the monkeys legs around the bottom tier and used the purple ribbon around the monkey and the top tier. Overall, I think it came together really well!

Happy Baby Showering!

Thanksgiving cupcakes

Okay, I know this is a craft blog, but these were just too fun not to share. My boyfriend's aunt asked that we bring a dessert to Thanksgiving, so, inevitably, I began searching for an idea on Pinterest. I am really not much of a baker because I have never been a huge fan of sweets, so cupcakes with some simple decorations seemed like a perfect fun Thanksgiving treat.

I started with baking some boxed regular angel food cake cupcakes. I frosted them with chocolate, but I am sure these would turn out just as cute with another color frosting. 

For the last step, you need candy corn (I used 6 pieces per cupcake and made 2 dozen cupcakes) and something to use for the eyes. I used mini M&Ms (they only had the holiday colors when I was making these), but you could use something like these if you want them to look more real.

Happy Baking :)

P.S. Hi Molly.