Unique Cupcake Tower ideas

Love it when talent meets The Cupcake Tower, thank you Stephanie for sharing your amazing work.  For more enticing images check out their blog as well…good stuff!

Boy meets girl.  Boy and girl play Wii until the ‘wee’ hours of the morning.  Boy and girl fall in love and voila!  A wedding ensues. Okay there’s a few more parts to the story…such as the part that the ‘boy’ is our cousin Devin and the girl was our dear friend Diena who I have known since we were in Brownies together! It never occurred to me to set these two up but that’s why I’m in The Cupcake Tower business and NOT the business of matchmaking, because these two…were truly meant to be.

They both agreed that they wanted to avoid extravagance and keep it homemade yet beautiful.  Enter Joy and Jennifer, event planners extraordinaire (or just gluttons .  We now had a shower and a wedding reception to plan so where to head for inspiration? Pinterest of course! I’ll take any excuse to get lost on that site…can you relate?

We knew that there would be cupcakes at the wedding so I decided on a ‘Mini Donut Tower’ to compliment the brunch theme.

I served cucumber water, mini yogurt parfaits (sure getting our moneys worth for these shot glasses, see them in action here and here) and although they were not as aesthetically pleasing as I hoped the watermelon (cut into hearts) drizzled with balsamic reduction and topped with red onion and feta were DELISH.

I also served egg ‘muffins’, crockpot pumpkin spice latte’ and my new favorite indulgence, bacon wrapped sweet potato bites.  Nothin wrong with that.

Super Martha (aka Joy) canned these beautiful Peach Butters for gifts.  I kept the decorations fairly simple, with babies breath, burlap and pearls accented by our shocking pink ribbon.

We had such a great time celebrating our beautiful friend.  Here she is below with the ultimate ‘hot pink’ gift card…isn’t she the cutest?

Stay tuned for the wedding post…

Now, would you like to know what these sisters have been up to lately?  Well, nothing short of one of the most exciting (or scary depending on how you look at it) things we’ve attempted as a small business thus far – the ‘All Things Baking’ expo in Schaumberg, Il in early October.  That’s right, we rounded up the grandparents to watch our herd of kids, shlepped our dozen suitcases or so with husbands in tow to Schaumberg via the FABULOUS city of Chicago and took a chance on our very first trade show.  At the time I had visions of blogging all day long with no ‘typical’ daily distractions but alas I was oblivious to how busy we would be every day from start to finish!  The response was phenomenal and our booth was hoppin‘.  We had a blast and loved meeting everyone!  One of our favorite parts was meeting loyal customers who stopped by to say ‘hi’.  Being a ‘cyber-business’ this is something we typically miss out on so it was a huge treat.

The jury is still out on whether this will be an annual undertaking but for what we will now call our ‘first’ show, here are some highlights:

Here we are setting up.  This was no small undertaking.  We displayed 7 Towers which equals about a bajillion cupcakes to place.  All in all though it’s not a bad days work hanging with your sister in a room immersed in the scents of ‘all things baking’…i.e. donuts, cupcakes, cookies, the list goes on.

The ‘cornerstone’ Tower was the wedding Cupcake/Cake Pop Tower that we’ve done in the past for Photo Shoots.  We used Navy ribbon with black and white liners and the result is nothing less than striking:

The square Tower was a surprise HIT.  We don’t sell nearly as many square as we do round but there’s just something about it that really grabbed people’s attention.  The set up was the ‘as seen everywhere’ owl theme that I just couldn’t resist.  It fits perfectly into fall/winter and once I came across the mason jar owl here on Hostess with the Mostess I was smitten and the wheels started turning.  We are always wanting to show how The Cupcake Tower can display any of your treats so we alternated with mini brownie treats sprinkled with powdered sugar and a ‘dollup’ of frosting.

Isn’t he CUTE?

I wont dwell too much on this next Tower since Halloween is ‘so 2 holidays ago’ but I have to show off this cute little Tiny Tower anyway.  The Peeps were inspired by this debut of The Cupcake Tower in Parenting Magazine (I’m just a teeny bit proud

Of course we couldn’t leave out the ever popular crowd pleasing Pinkalicious Tower.  Enough said.

This next Tower was largely inspired by our current addiction (seriously people…hard core addicted) Pinterest.  We wanted to do a Winter/Christmas themed Tower and LOVED these powdered donut snowmen we found as well as the ‘North Pole’ cupcakes.  The Cake Pops were provided by The Lollicake Bakeshop (as were all the Cake Pops in this post) and quite honestly drew in a HUGE chunk of the traffic (thanks again Kerry!).

I’m sorry but is he not the most adorable little donut you ever did see???

Next was our Jungle Theme Tower and for obvious reasons, was the most popular.  Again, the Cake Pops provided by Kerry were too cute for anyone to just pass by.  Our Cake Topper was provided by another awesome customer and award winning bakery Bleeding Heart Bakery.

Again a HUGE thanks to everyone who stopped by.  We had so much fun and were really proud of our hard earned success.

Have you ever been to one of these expo’s either as an attendee or an exhibitor?  What’s your thoughts?  Did you consider it worthwhile?

I love how she used the top of the Tower to display the inspiration behind the party, the book itself.

For creative details and a complete tutorial on this incredibly charming party please visit the original post here.  If you’re not convinced just yet…there’s also a fabulous giveaway involved! GO!

As a child I LOVED Alice in Wonderland.  The story is an explosion of imagination and color that still intrigues me today.  Since the release of the Tim Burton version in 2010 I’ve delighted in seeing the inspired parties posted on various blogs.

Want to throw an Alice in Wonderland party of your own?  Besides the fabulous Cupcake Tower shown above here a a few other awesome ideas to kickstart your party planning.

This Mad Hatter Tea Party thrown by Design Dazzle has a bunch of great ideas for you, these mini ceramic cookie jars with ‘eat me’ tags being one of my favorites

Are you crazy talented with fondant?  Try your hand at this cake topper found on Hub Pages

Greet your guests by decorating your front door – how irresistible is this???  Thank you Instructables for this great idea

What would your party be without that rascal the Cheshire Cat?  Check out this version perched in the tree on ‘Let’s Explore’ (LOTS of cute ideas here)

This Tea Cup Cupcake Tower was actually for a garden themed baby shower but I love this look and how easily it could be used for our theme, thank you Lora for submitting this photo to our Facebook page

This party featured on Hostess with the Mostess is to die for.  I especially love that it’s a combo party for 3 different girls’ birthdays…this is likely something in my near future as the ‘grandkids’ seem to all want to be born within weeks of one another.  Why not combine and share expenses, giving the rest of the family a bit of a break as well…??  I can’t pick just one idea from this party…you can’t make me  The entire post is worth checking out.

Okay you should be brimming with ideas!!!  Please be sure to share your photos if you have your own Alice in Wonderland party.  Not planning one of your own but have a great idea how to incorporate the Tower?  Share them here in a comment!

I love this cake topper and the ‘rose’ cupcakes below by Jennifer Carter:

I love how ‘clean’ this Lego Tower looks by Kelli DeFeo Lassogna:

How cute is this giraffe?  The sneak peak of the animal cupcakes below from this perspective is adorable.  Thanks Jessica Love:

At last, this one is a personal fave. how cool does the Tower look here?  Thanks Randi Cakes for making me fall in love all over again.

And here she is in all of her Cake Pop glory with Monster Pops:

Here’s a little ‘behind the scenes’ shot:

But I’ll be honest, this is a little too ‘neat’.  That’s not reality…here’s the behind the behind the scenes shot that truly depicts the chaos of the day:

Yep, that’s more like it!  Thank goodness our Photographer Jamee was a saint and the madness of the day was completely worth the results.

Navy is hot this year so we wanted to incorporate it into our wedding Cake Pop tower.  We also wanted to demonstrate the Tower’s versatility showing off how you can flip the circles and use one layer for Cake Pops and the next for Cupcakes.  A bride shouldn’t have to decide!

Here’s Joy setting up the ‘Pinkalicious’ Tower:

Dar-Ling:

Dont want the height of a tower?  No problem, use just one of the circles with or without the base as a Cake Pop stand (these pictures just make me giddy!)

All Cake Pops provided by The Lollicake Bakeshop.  Monster cupcakes provided by The Bagel Bakery in Brighton.  Chaos provided by our 4 youngest children, Grace, Sara, Jack and Ellie

When thinking about how we’ve watched Jack’s personality emerge over the past year I couldn’t help but remember how one of the first ways he used to communicate with us was to growl. Hence, ‘Our Little Monster’ – done!  And the decorating madness ensues…

We greeted guests with a fair warning:

and once they entered it was ‘monster cuteness’ overload with favors that I got from Oriental Trading.  Beach balls, little stuffed animals, squeaky monsters…I could hardly stop myself!

We wanted the message to be clear

Of course we needed clever bags for the kiddos to take home all the goodies, Grace even helped me make these! (‘Okay honey hand me a ‘grrr….now a big eye…now a little eye…’)

The bags were filled with the monster goodies:

and of course I made everyone give me their best monster face for a photo op:

Even the birthday boy participated with his cousin’s encouragement (very, very briefly I might add!)

Here’s the little guy’s ‘Monster Throne’

I HAD to recreate this crazy cute monster melon that I found here on Juicy Bits blog (another fantastic monster party with some great ideas for slightly older kids, LOVE the monster piñata!)

Makin’ Mud Pies also provided inspiration for much of our party such as the ‘googly’ eyes you see throughout the photos and the idea of Monster Fur, like you see here on the Cupcake Tower:

Now you may think that the only thing that’s unique about this particular Tower is the trim I chose to use in lieu of the traditional ribbon.  Well you’re wrong!  This just so happens to be the first photos of our Cake Pop Towers in action!!! How fabulous is THIS:

The Cake Pops (quite possibly the most adorable things I have ever laid eyes on) were made by The Lollicake Bake Shop.  The cupcakes and topper by The Bagel Bakery in Brighton.  Feast your eyes:

Jack cooperated and dug right in to his cupcake, even double fisting it at one point:

Mom!  Enough with the camera already!

Happy Birthday my sweet, sweet boy. We love you.

Let me start off by saying you guys did NOT make this easy, we agonized over which submissions to choose as the winners!  We each had our reasons for our favorites (and fought hard for them) but at the end of the day we agreed, Renee Daly of ‘The Cake Fairy‘, Teresa Da Ponte Cunha and Robin Fairfield Daniels of ‘Cakes by Robin‘ will each be receiving a carrying bag for their submissions, thank you ladies for the FANTASTIC photos of your Cupcake Towers.

We hope that you all had as much fun as we did looking at the plethora of amazing and inspiring photos that were submitted for this contest.  Such creative genius out there I tell ya! We hope you keep them coming…and keep an eye out on the blog where I will be using some of our other favorite shots in my future posts.

Congratulations again to…

Renee Daly who created this Super Mario Bros Tower for her sons 6th birthday (how cute is he???):

Teresa Da Ponte Cunha (Completely worth checking out her Facebook Page, her work is jaw-dropping!):

and last but certainly not least we were taken by the color combo and sheer elegance of this tower by Robin Daniels (clearly ‘The Knot’ agreed!):

Thank you again to everyone who participated!  Tell us, which was your favorite Cupcake Tower photo?

We celebrated a couple of ’1st’ Easter’s:

We couldn’t WAIT to get out the door for the Easter egg hunt:

We hunted like pros:

We witnessed one sugar coma after another (note the glazed over look in their eyes):

and The Cupcake Tower came through once again!

How gorgeous are these little birds nest cupcakes?  Joy found the recipe here on the Better Homes and Gardens Website.  Aren’t they pretty?

How did you use your Tower this Easter?  Share your Easter Tower pics here on our Facebook page.