The Cupcake Tree

I was practically begging Erin to give me something to do before her wedding. She finally relented and passed off the stand for her cupcakes. She had ordered a Cupcake Tree and wasn't sure what to do with it. It arrived at her home as a box of white cardboard pieces. If you aren't interested in decorating it, the tree is quite easy to put together. But this tree was going to Erin's wedding, and that white cardboard wasn't cutting it for either of us. She gave me very few instructions. The cupcakes were going to be decorated with primary color flowers made of icing.

I enlisted my mom's help because she is super crafty. We were struggling with the primary colors. We wanted it to be fun and whimsical to match the cupcakes, but we didn't want it to be childish. It was a very fine line! We decided to make it look like grass so that the cupcakes seemed to be growing out of the stand. We came up with a million different ways to do it, but our favorite method became covering the levels with green plastic tablecloths and then hot gluing pieces of paper grass to the edges.


We bought the grass at Michael's in their scrapbooking section. As much as I love paper, I really dislike scrapbooking and I get really uncomfortable in that section. After several trips to specialty scrapbooking shops and every Michael's within a 30 mile radius of my mom's house, I got over it. We weren't sure what to do to make the grass 3D, and this was the perfect solution.

As you may have noticed, we added a few little critters to the grass.


Erin's reception was at a gorgeous Arboretum in the Chicago burbs. They were doing a huge exhibit on bugs (including some ENORMOUS metal and wood scupltures of ants and a praying mantis!) so we thought this would be the perfect detail. Although we had many different little bugs, I overdid the ladybugs for good luck!

Here is our pride and joy in action. I love how she looked with all the cupcakes!

Those little cakes were AMAZING! After several painful (ha!) trips to bakers, Erin and Jeff found their favorites at Sensational Bites. My family brought home as many leftovers as we could because they were so yummy.

Has anyone else bought a Cupcake Tree? I would love to see yours decorated!