Monday, September 8, 2014

DIYing Cake Toppers

When my brother and his husband were married a couple of years ago, both were oblivious to the concept of wedding cake toppers. With a week until the reception and no time to order custom made, I decided I would make their set. I'm crafty, but not a professional. Having never made cake toppers, I went to the dollar store and bought objects in the shapes that I thought I might need. My brother loves fish and caring for his aquarium, so I decided simple goldfish were the way to go.

They turned out better than I could have imagined! The top hats are foam hair curlers, the bodies are decorative artificial lemons, the stands are pencils. It was a perfect topper for their cheesecake tower and basically one of my proudest moments! Now that one of my best friends is getting married, I hoped to recreate the magic but with cats. However, it turns out cats are much more difficult than minimalist goldfish!



Where things got more tricky were the faces. Unlike the goldfish, faceless cats didn't look right to me. The goal was to have the groom be a black cat, and the bride a white cat. The groom's face evolved rather quickly into looking like my own cat (which worked because the groom loves Kitty Posner!). Painting the bride, though, revealed some design flaws. The white paint accentuated every grove in the artificial limes used for the body and the Styrofoam ball head. Switching to grey paint helped.




Though they didn't turn out exactly as I had pictured them, they are awfully cute! Once I realized that they were more likely to be shower decor than on the actual wedding cake, I was able to have a bit more fun. The bride is a big fan of Lil Bub, so I added a Lil Bub tongue to make the kitty bride more personal. My favorite part of the process? Adding the necklace and sewing the tiny veil. Kitty bride needed to be "jacked up!" To tie the whole thing together, I displayed them in a flower pot as the bridal shower had a garden theme. So cute! Now, to start my dollar store crafted pet statuette business!

No comments:

Post a Comment