DIY Tiffany Blue Cake Stand

So I love cake. Like, literally love cake.

And Tiffany’s. And cake plates. And any sort of project that involves hot glue.

Saving the world, one hot glue gun burn at a time? I like to think so.

When my bff was in town this weekend, we whipped up this DIY tiffany blue cake stand.

The base is a candle holder, and the top is a dinner plate. I was a “maxinista” (#shamerattle) and procured both of these items for less than $10.

Add a little hot glue, and you have a cake stand.

Seriously, I could give the chick who made the ‘redneck wine glasses’ a run for her money with these.

#Love.

Now, all I need is some cake.

Advertisement

DIY Festive Star Cupcake Flags and Place Cards

So I’m back…after an intense three weeks, I finally have some time to get back to CP. But that’s a story for another day.

One of my (many) obsessions lately is cupcake flags. They really just give cupcakes a little something extra…as in extra fabulous.

And cupcake flags are an easy DIY. You need toothpicks, glue or tape, and whatever you want to use as the flag part.

These metallic stars were picked up at Michael’s.

You glue the toothpick to one star, add more glue, and top with a second star.

Normally, I make my flags one-sided, but I was crafting with my BFF, who can be a bit of a craft dictator perfectionist. Which is okay, because then I do the extra steps that I normally skip out of laziness to be efficient.

After we were finished the cupcake flags, it was time for place cards. And we needed place cards to avoid sitting next to anyone weird at family birthday celebration dinner. Which is also another story for another day.

Not having folded tent cards handy, we used flat cards instead. Just glue on a star, and you’re done. We ended up writing the names on with a silver Sharpie, but had we pre-recognized the need for weird family member avoidance, they would have gotten printed pre-stars.

More posts on my variety of cupcake flags to follow…

Gifting on a Budget: Customized Onesies

For me, it’s not the Year of the Dragon. It’s the “year of the shower.” As in, wedding and baby showers.

Last year, I had seven bridal showers and this year, I’m already locked into two baby showers. And it’s just the beginning of March.

So, I’m focused on finding thoughtful gifts that don’t break the bank. Which is what spurred me to make these onesies. I originally saw the idea here on Finley & Oliver, which has a ton of great DIY ideas for kids.

You don’t need to be a master seamstress to make these, as long as your design isn’t too complex.

Here’s what you need:

• Felt
• Heat n’ Bond or a similar iron-on transfer paper
• Onesies (duh)
• Sewing machine

You can stitch these by hand, but given how much wear and tear baby clothes get, machine-sewing makes them much more durable.

I used my Cricut Expression to cut out some of the shapes, which made tracing them super fast. Else there are lots of free downloadable shape templates for things like polygons or chevrons and a quick google search will find whatever you need.

When you’ve selected a design, it’s five quick steps to handcrafted onesie gold.

1. Trace your design
2. Iron onto felt
3. Cut out the shapes and layout your design
4. Iron the shapes onto onesies
5. Stitch down for added durability

You could easily use this technique to make a custom tee or bag too.

Happy crafting!

Because nothing says “I love you” like…

A good ol’ fashioned celebration of VD.

Why thank you, Rick. What a splendid idea.

Grown-Up Party Favors

I thought I’d title this post Adult Party Favors…but then I realized some people might get the wrong impression. (insert immature 12-year-old giggles here…)

Remember the paper flowers I was making here? Well, many pages later, they found a home as the decor for my grown-up party favors.

Instead of the goodie bags full of sugary snacks, temporary tattoos and hideous hair scrunchies that you often received at childhood parties, the favors I passed out involved delicious goodness known as Jameson.

And no, I didn’t pass out treat bags full of airplane bottles…although, now that you mention it…mental note: make giving out airplane bottles trendy…

Mmmm, glug glug yum.

Instead, I made delicious (and nutritious!) Irish Cream. Yes, I like to DIY my alcohol, thankyouverymuch. The recipe was pretty simple, and there’s lots of variations out there. I used this recipe that I first saw on Pioneer Woman. Most of the ingredients I already had–minus the heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk.

When you start, your counter will look like a mess of goodness, like this:

On the way to some awesome sauce.

The skim milk really makes it healthy…LOL. And, I’d strongly encourage using Jameson if you make this at home. I feel that it gives it such an “authentic” Irish flavor. And let’s be reasonable…no one wants the hangover that you get from Evan Williams…yikes. If the Jameo is too strong (or not strong enough!) you can dial-down the intensity by adding in a little bit less than the recipe calls for.

The Pioneer Woman/Tasty Kitchen say this stays good for about two months, but I’m not exactly sure. I packaged mine into half-pint bell jars, and I hope my friends are boozebags don’t wait two months to drink it a half pint! One batch makes 2.5 pints, aka five half-pints.

All that’s left for you to do is impress your friends with your boozy culinary skills.

Anyone need a straw?

My Mom is awesome, but that book is cursed.

My mom is awesome sauce.

She taught me how to cook. And that you should eat the broken cookies before someone sees them. And she’s very crafty, especially skilled in sewing buttons back onto a certain red coat of mine.

But what makes her most awesome is that she always has my back.

Take this weekend. My dad was grilling me like a juicy steak about why I wasn’t seeing a guy I had been dating anymore.

Dad: “Come on, give me some dirt!”

Mom: “The only dirt you need to know is that if he doesn’t like our daughter then that guy is a dirtbag!”

And that is why I love my mom.

See, she even laughs when I do funny things to my pregnant sister.

(In related news, I swear the ex-boyfriend book I used to craft is cursed. While it did make amazingly good paper flowers, said paper flowers were displayed at a party where aforementioned guy-i’m-no-longer-seeing decided that he just wasn’t that into me. Bad ex-boyfriend book karma?)

When you give a girl a party…

She’ll have to craft everything in sight.

Old book pages + gluesticks = victory.

Well…technically I’m throwing myself a party…although it’s really not for me…its more of an excuse to get together with friends and show off try out some DIY project’s I’ve been wanting to do. I keep calling these paper pinwheels, although they’re really not pinwheels, more like flowers.

Pretty easy to make, once I got the hang of it and got over the fact that I need to make MANY MANY book flowers before Saturday. The original idea comes from a Better Homes & Gardens post which can be found here.

First, you’ll need an old book. I grabbed a copy of White Noise that an ex-boyfriend had given me. (Just like the ex, this book needed to go…) While the BHG post recommends using a vintage book with thicker pages, I like the thinness of the paperback pages better–easier for making accordion folds.

Fold, trim, tie, glue!

You need two pages (or one page cut in half) to make the book flowers. After you make the accordian fold, you can trim the edges off to give it a more flower-y look. Then, tie the two halves together (this is where had serious #fails…) and glue the pages into a circle! Luckily, the book I choose had some interesting title pages, which is what gives the light/dark effect above.

After making about eight of these, I got smart accidentally discovered that if you fold one page over the other before tying with string, it cuts down on the glueing. The picture below shows what I mean.

And then I got smart...linking the edges together eliminates glueing.

Also, depending on where you are going to hang your book flowers, you may want to leave extra string on the ties.

As for me, I have 14 of these bad boys finished and many more to go! I’m planning on glueing buttons to the centers to complete the look. Wish me luck!

Ta-da!

One of the best parts of this endeavor was that I already had all the supplies I needed–so the project cost me $0. It’s eco-friendly and a great way to recycle books into something new.