DIY Life

Here at DIY Life, posts about weddings are always popular, but often, posts about knit and crochet patterns come in a close second.

I thought it might be interesting to combine the two, by looking at a few free patterns for wedding cakes made from yarn. (Hey, they don't have to be frozen, and they never get stale!)

• Crochet Today's Crochet Confection cake pattern (PDF download) is, at 4"x8", life-sized. It's an easy, single-tier cake that you can display on a stand over a form.
• Berroco's Buttercream is also life-sized, but this one is a tiered cake with flowers; it can be used to store dishes. It's made in their Ultra Alpaca, but any other worsted-weight yarn should work just as well.
• On the miniature side, there are the Norma Lynn Cake Sachets. Several of the designs here, like the Two-Tier Cake and the Clumsy Cake, seem wedding-appropriate, though they're part of a collection of desserts. The second page of cake sachet patterns has a triple-tier wedding cake with flower toppers and ruffled trim.

Suggested uses? The sachets would make great giveaways at a bridal shower; they'd also make nice package decorations for gifts. Some of the projects might make cute gifts for attendants, in the right kind of wedding. They would be fun commemorations of a special anniversary, or whimsical decor in the right kind of room. Professional wedding planners could also probably appreciate them.

Outside of the wedding framework, you can always choose different colors, changing the "wedding cake" into a "birthday cake" -- or merely making a cute trinket for a friend who loves sweet desserts.

And if you're looking for more patterns like this, check out an older post of mine -- Amigurumi-o-rama: Crocheted Food.

Cupcakes have come into vogue as a sweet alternative to the traditional wedding cake. No fussing with cutting the cake, and guests can choose from a variety of flavors. Besides that, a well-decorated cupcake is just plain adorable!

If you have a couple hundred guests, though, that's a couple hundred cupcakes, at least. Where on earth do you serve them? Cupcake stands are the norm, but generally these hold only a couple of dozen.

If you're an enterprising DIY bride, however, you might just want to craft a cupcake stand to beat all cupcake stands, and put a solid 375 cupcakes on the one, enormous tree! You could consider it the centerpiece to the reception hall!

The ties that bind - Dad's probably got enough neckties hanging in his closet and doesn't need another one. If you can get your hands on an old one he doesn't wear anymore -- or one you wish he didn't -- then make him a protective sleeve to fit around his hot coffee cup. As an alternative, you can always involve the kids in a making a skinny tie cake, or just send him a virtual tie to wear while he plays virtual video games.

Picture this - Even thought they might not come right out and say so, dads love to show off pictures of their family just as much as mom and grandma. We've got loads of ideas on how to package your favorite photos besides the standard wood frame from the local department store. How about a frame made from Legos, puzzle pieces, or nuts and washers?

Stylish! - If you're handy with a needle and thread or paintbrush, why not make Pop some monogrammed cufflinks or custom-painted BBQ accessories?

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Nothing says Happy Father's Day like a new tie, right? You can surprise the special dad in your life by presenting him with an artistically created necktie cake. A skinny necktie cake is a lot more fun to bake, frost, and embellish than shopping for the perfect tie. Everyone will enjoy this necktie -- with a little dip of ice cream -- and there will be no sense of disappointment from Dad.

MailJust4me provides simple Father's Day projects, including directions for making a necktie cake. I took liberties with their pan recommendations and used two 9 x4 bread pans. When thinking of a design, I checked out some Armani ties to see what's new.

What you need:

• 2 9x4 baked cakes or 1 large rectangular cake cut lengthwise in half
• white frosting
• food coloring
• ziplock bag
• scissors
• M & M's or other candy
• Large tray or platter to hold finished cake

Check out the gallery to see how my cake turned out, then follow me through the break for the decorating instructions.

I adopted my son just after his 10th birthday so we decided to have a belated party. I asked him what shape of cake he wanted He thought about it and answered "rectangle... I'd like a rectangle cake."

When I was a kid my mom always baked up something fabulous every birthday. (My favorite was a Big Bird cake that used a frosted sugar cone for the beak.) So I explained to my son that he had more options besides round, square, and rectangular. He was really excited, but didn't quite know what to do.

After some searching on the internet, we settled on this snake cake. It was right up my son's alley, yet easy enough that I knew I could pull it off. It turned out terribly cute, if I say so myself! Want another creative cake idea? Check out this sushi cake.

I love the look of sushi, but unlike some other writers around here, I can't stand the taste of it. In fact, I can't even tolerate the flavor of fish! (Ironic, I know, given that I frequently post about Japanese stuff: I'd last about a day in Tokyo.) But there is something that I do famously love to eat, and that something is... cake.

I was therefore completely charmed by Craftster user .mila.'s Sushi Cake, created for a friend's birthday. It looks like a slice of kappa-maki (cucumber roll) or maybe anago-maki (saltwater eel roll), but no fish, seaweed, or rice is to be seen.

Instead, it's four layers of cake and chocolate mousse filling, with a layer of strawberries in the center.The "rice" is shredded coconut, the "nori" ("seaweed" wrap) is buttercream icing tinted green with food coloring, and the "filling" at the center of the roll, really just on top of the cake, is gummi candy in appropriate colors. Wasabi is represented by more green icing, and sliced strawberries stand in for the pink ginger (gari) that usually comes on the side. .Mila. even put chopsticks and soy sauce on the side.

I don't know about you, but I would be thrilled to eat this sushi on my next birthday.

It has always seemed a shame to me that one of the best parts of the wedding day gets destroyed soon after the wedding ceremony. I have always enjoyed the beauty of wedding cakes and although I have always liked eating a piece, or two, or three, it still seems unfortunate to me that wedding cakes can't survive the celebration intact. Photographs just don't do justice to the memory of a wedding cake. They are after all, hand crafted works of art. So what is a person to do when they want a wedding cake that will withstand the rigors of time? I have found the answer. Although not edible, a LEGO wedding cake is durable enough to keep for a lifetime and to pass on to your heirs.

The LEGO wedding cake web page I have located for you does not have actual step by step instructions for making this beautiful creation but plenty of pictures and good descriptive text give you enough information to undertake the project yourself. The bottom two tiers are constructed slice by slice, allowing the happy wedding couple to give them to wedding guests as keepsakes.

If you're a fan of LEGO construction and you are contemplating tying the matrimonial knot, give some consideration to the LEGO wedding cake. It fits all the requirements of the traditional wedding cake except it's not edible and you really wouldn't want to schmoosh a piece of it into your new life partner's face.

Sadly, the traditional homemaking craft of baking does not come naturally to me. If I can get the goods out of the oven without setting fire to anything, I'm pretty happy. As for my last homemade cake, the rounded top and slightly too-soft frosting both contributed to an unenviable "cow pattie" look. Oops.

With a little practice, even lost causes like myself can learn to frost a cake like a pro, according to the site SheKnows.

A few of my favorite summer recipes, such as Strawberry Pie, require a large sum of whole, cleaned and hulled strawberries. However, yanking those green tops off can be time consuming, not to mention all the sweat meat lost when we rush. Some stores sell a contraption called a "strawberry huller" but they're clunky and often waste too much of the strawberry.

I'm a big fan of using what you have, but some older remedies work no better than the strawberry hullers. One such technique is the potato peeler. You stab the strawberry in at the top next to the stem, rotate the strawberry so the peeler cuts around the stem and pop it out with a flick of the wrist. That works great with larger strawberries, but what about those petite sweats?

The best berry-hulling tool is actually located in your cake decorating kit. The variety of star-shaped frosting cones is perfect for the varying sizes of strawberries. Use the larger star on over-sized strawberries and the small star on homegrown beauties. You're sure to have a huller the perfect size for your needs. Plus, the cones allow you to dig as shallow or as deep as you need, thus preventing the loss of berry meat. To use, place the frosting cone over the stem and push into the strawberry, then twist and pull up at an angle (a.k.a. just not straight up).

As an added bonus to this tool, there's no need to clean out the cone between berries. Just move on to the next berry and the stem from the previous berry is pushed up and out of the open-ended side of the cone. Icing on the cake, the cone is dishwasher safe.

Have you ever run into a situation where you've needed a pastry bag to pipe over-sweetened icing onto a cake, fill deviled eggs, or meter out dough for any number of deep-fried goodies? Pastry bags are not too expensive, but when you don't have one and time is running out to decorate that delectable cake you've just baked before your guests arrive, what do you do? Everyone say it together now, "do-it-yourself!"