Custom Cupcake Wedding Stand

For one of the last wedding orders I completed I needed to construct a stand ASAP. I didn't have time to go and buy one that met the bride's specifications (plus, large scale stands that can hold 70 cupcakes are ridiculously expensive) so I knew I needed to get working. The supplies to make the cupcake stand were a tad bit on the expensive side, but I wanted to make sure the stand was food safe and stable. My bride wanted something with bling to match the glamorous cupcakes so I needed to buy bling wrap, but you can basically decorate this cupcake stand with anything you desire.

Time: 2 Hours

Materials needed to make the basic cupcake stand (approximately $115.00 for all of the materials I used):

• Varying sizes of flat and square/circular styrofoam blocks (get the strong stuff, not the garden stuff!)
• Cube shaped styrofoam boxes 
• Food safe wrap (it kind of looks like gift wrap, but it is food safe and a lot more pliable; I bought my roll from Michael's)
• Cake board

Optional Materials that I used:

• Ribbon
• Bling Wrap

Tools:

• Glue gun
• Stapler

Instructions:

1) Wrap all of the flat Styrofoam pieces with the food safe wrapping (shown right on the picture above); Don't worry about wrapping them all the way around as only one side will be visible (as shown below). TIP: Make sure that you place a few staples in the middle so that your tiers don't shake and rip the paper. I had a little bit of an issue!

2) Place a small amount of hot glue on the edge of the Styrofoam block and carefully line up the ribbon to create a straight border. Only apply a little bit of glue at a time as hot glue tends to dry very quickly. Run your hand over the ribbon to even out the glue. It will look silly if the ribbon is popping off of the edging.

3) Next, I added bling wrap using hot glue to give it that extra pop. Bling wrap is awesome as it comes in thick strips that can be cut to your specifications. I chose to cut rows of three as it was the perfect amount. Not too much bling, but not too little either.

Once you are finished, your boxes should all look uniform.

4) Cover all of the smaller boxes with the food safe wrap. For these ones I would recommend covering the whole box. 

5) I added ribbon and bling wrap to the boxes, but feel free to leave them plain as the cupcakes may end up covering a lot of the detailing.

6) Hot glue the largest tier on the cake board.

7) Hot glue one of the cubes onto the middle of the bottom tier. Make sure all of your tiers and blocks are super centered or else the law of physics will be against you and your tiers will tip over. Continue the hot gluing process with the rest of the tiers and blocks. 

When placing your cupcakes on the upper tiers, make sure that you equally distribute the weight of the cupcakes. 

Beautiful baking sweeties!