DIY Life

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!

If you've got kids, you know what a hit anything bite-sized is. My son is such a fool for anything tiny, I sometimes think he would eat liver and onions if I could make it bite-sized. (Lucky for him, I'm not that mean!) These bite-sized cupcakes on a stick are sure to be a new favorite for the kids (and adults) in your life.

The cupcakes aren't baked in a mini-cupcake pan like you might expect. Instead, the cake is baked in a 13X9 pan and then crumbled and formed into balls with either frosting or cream cheese. In addition to increasing the yum factor, this step probably makes the cakes more stable on the stick.

Part of the ball is then cut away with a mini-cookie cutter to form the base of the cupcake. The the bottom is dipped in chocolate and the top is dipped in a melted white chocolate or colored candy melts. Bakerella has instructions with photos and a video clip.

Be sure to check out all the fun varieties, then put your thinking cap on and come up with your own decorating ideas -- the sky is the limit!

[via CraftyStylish]

I have finally fallen victim to the cupcake craze. They are everywhere, on everything. But cupcakes don't irritate me like past crazes, like the flip-flop trend. (Which we still haven't seen the last of, it seems.) No, cupcakes don't irritate me: they make me smile.

I, and quite a few of my friends, go thrift-shopping and garage-saleing seeking out old sweaters to chop up and recycle into various things.

There are a great many things you can do with old sweaters. You can repurpose them into just about anything, like scarves, gloves, cozies, and stuffed animals. But here's another one: cupcake pincushions.

You'll need an old sweater (a striped one gives you wonderful, colorful options), a sewing machine, thread, a hand sewing needle, a scrap of felt, and glue. This project is pretty simple, especially if you are coordinated. If not, rolling the different layers up may be a bit daunting. I had a bit of trouble with it, but I was born accident-prone and uncoordinated.

Seriously, this project is really simple, involves minimal sewing, and is done in a jiffy. But I will warn you: you'll be tempted to eat up these adorable and delectable pincushions!

It's that time of year again: Martha Stewart's super-awesome special Halloween issue is on the newsstands, and there's plenty of interesting material on her website to match.

The magazine features the usual mix of easy, stylish costume ideas, tricks, treats, home decor ideas, templates to print out or photocopy, and a ton of interesting ideas for Jack O'Lanterns. This year, it's a split between "good things" -- spooky-cute ideas with a slightly retro feel -- and "bad things," which are a little darker and seem to be meant for a slightly older audience (some of the finished products could frighten very young children). A couple of items come in both flavors.

The Martha Stewart Halloween web page has a lot of features in it that seem to be from past Halloween special issues (and regular October issues!), as well as some ideas and downloads from the current one. You can download templates for atmospheric black paper drapes, a paper bat garland, or Creepy Mice. Try instructions for moth-eaten curtains. Serve Gothic Grog or Witches' Brew from a coffin-shaped table, make papier-mache decorations shaped like pumpkins or black cats, burn "specimen jar candles" (you sent out Mad Scientist Invites, right?), and bake Creepcake cupcakes.

You'll find plenty of tips for costumes and makeup, too!

In the last couple of days, we've taken a long look at amigurumi and discovered some darling patterns for animals to crochet or knit. Today, it's all about food.

Amigurumi food tends to skew cute, childish, and sugary: for several reasons, you're more likely to find a pattern for anthropomorphized vegetables or frosted cupcakes than for a juicy steak, though steak wouldn't be out of the question if it had big eyes and a tiny smile.

• Hannah at BitterSweet has done many free patterns for food, always accompanied by evocative stories, like One Bad Egg and Two Peas in a Pod. She designs for both knitters and crocheters. (I neglected her in the animal pattern roundup yesterday: please check out her other patterns!)
• Ana Paula Rimoli has a frilly cupcake and a happy fried egg to crochet.
• Peachcake Knits has designed a whole bowl of knitted fruit people: apple, banana, peach, lemon/lime, and pear.

More after the break! And join us tomorrow for the wrap-up of my Amigurumi-o-rama: pop culture amigurumi.