Inside: Make your own simple birthday cake toppers using sparkly scrapbook supplies and balsa wood.
Sometimes you find yourself in need of fast and easy birthday decorations. When I found out I was hosting my niece’s 7th birthday the day before – I raced out to get a pretty pre-made cake and then decided to dress it up with some fun DIY Cake Toppers.
If you are looking for a couple other quick and easy cake ideas, try these homemade Hostess-inspired stuffed cupcakes – so delicious!
Here’s how I pulled it all together!
Supplies for DIY Birthday Cake Toppers and Banner
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- Scrap Balsa Wood
- Shiny Contact Paper
- Paint Pot Sample
- Little coloured paper bags
- Jute Twine
- Colourful Drinking Straws
- Glittery Cardstock
- Washi Tape
I also used my Silhouette Cameo for this project, but you can easily do this by hand with scissors.
For the banner, I simply cut my Balsa into 4″ triangles using my utility knife. I love working with balsa wood for crafting because it cuts really well. Just a couple of swipes with the knife and it’ll come apart.
From there, I thought just sticking letters on my banner was too boring. I raided my paint stash and found some teal mis-tint paint that I used to colour the edges.
I headed over to my Silhouette and typed Happy Birthday. Using my blade on setting 1, I cut it out of my silver shiny Con-tact Paper. But even that wasn’t enough fun for my banner yet! I bumped it up a notch with some black and white polka dot Washi tape first 🙂
The next thing I did was cut Princess Stars out of my Glittery Cardstock. Now – a warning. The settings in the Silhouette Studio suggested a blade speed of 3 and a blade depth of 6. But that didn’t cut through my super thick paper. Instead, I dropped the speed down to 2 (you’ll feel like your machine is taking FOREVER!!) and I increased the blade depth all the way to 10. Like butter. It worked perfectly. I hot glued my stars to my pink straws to create seven cake toppers for the 7-year old 🙂
The last step was to create the custom loot bags. I created a sort of Yankee swap for our family and filled each bag with gag gifts tailored to each person – so I decided to number them so I could make sure each person got the right funny present. (Wouldn’t want my Mother-in-Law getting the Poop emoji key chain when that was clearly for my 10-year old nephew! haha) I made the numbers out of the same shiny Con-Tact Paper that I used for the banner.
Now for the party! I staged them all together on a little table I brought into the living room.
And surprise, surprise! I ran out of time to bake a cake and decorate it, so this one is from the local grocer. Don’t you think the little star toppers gave it some new game? The only hiccup was that I couldn’t safely remove the cake from the plastic tray it came on, so I simple sprinkled some tissue confetti around and disguised it.
Here are some other crafty posts you might like
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Erica @ Dwell Beautiful
Monday 16th of May 2016
These. Are. Seriously. The. Cutest! Your niece is so lucky to have you as an awesome crafty Auntie :)
Tiffany
Saturday 14th of May 2016
What a great aunt you are! What a beautiful party and I am sure she loved it.
Lucy ~ Patina Paradise
Thursday 12th of May 2016
Everything looks perfect for the party decor. I love banners but have yet to try a wood one. So cute!
Morena
Thursday 12th of May 2016
Sooooo cute!!
Giselle
Thursday 12th of May 2016
So cute! Reminds me of Martha Stewart. Your niece must have loved it!