Thrifty Thursday: Making a Cupcake Tower

My son wanted to have cupcakes for his birthday so I wanted to figure out a way to display them so that I could carry them to the table like a cake.  I have a really big platter but it seemed so boring.  I had a tiered wrought iron stand but it is a Christmas tree shape so not really birthday celebration material.  I thought of a few different ideas with pottery turned upside down but then I couldn't move them because they wouldn't be attached. 

I remembered a post that I saw many moons ago and I am so sorry for not remembering where I saw it but they made something from boxes.  We still had a basement full of boxes from Christmas so I set out to find the perfect boxes.  I wanted them to be square which was a really big challenge.  I thought that there would be three layers so I got a big box that we were still using for the item so I emptied the box to use it.  I found the box from my son's camera from Santa.  The top was a challenge because I only wanted it to fit one cupcake.  I found my husband's Rubik cube.  I used a plain light green wrapping paper to wrap each box just like a present.  Then, I taped the layers together so that it was one piece and wouldn't separate.  What do you think??  Pretty neat looking right?

My son's favorite color is green so we made chocolate cupcakes with green frosting, green sprinkles and green M&Ms.  Then, I put the decorated cupcakes on the wrapped layers.  Trying my best to evenly space them but it was really hard to do.  I didn't use cupcake liners because I prefer cupcakes without them and it makes for more mess to clean up with little ones trying to eat the frosting off them.  Without the paper liner, the cupcakes made little marks on the paper so I couldn't move them much when they were placed.

To make them more kid friendly, I wanted to have decorations on the cake so I made little toothpicks with stickers at the top for the ones for the kids.  I just used stickers that we already had at the house and toothpicks from the cupboard.  Luckily, there were two of some stickers so I just put one on each side to match and pressed over the toothpick.  It was pretty easy and entertained the kids.  I am going to have to work on my patience to make more complicated cakes in the coming years but my creativity payed off this year in a frugal solution.

Check out the top with the Big 4 candle (thanks Aunt Lynn) for the birthday boy.

It was a super frugal idea that ended up working out really well.  I used everything that I already had around the house with the addition of a jar of frosting that I got at Target Christmas clearance with coupon!!  If not, I would have tried to make homemade frosting instead so I guess there is always next year.  I hope that you try a cupcake tower for your next cupcake adventure!!  It was so easy and means that you don't have to keep more special dishes around the house taking up valuable cupboard space.  If you only have Christmas paper, turn it inside out and you have a white tower which you can decorate with stickers or other pictures.  I can't wait to use a tower again and I hope that you try it too!!