Project: Cake Toppers
Inspiration: Images like this, from Pinterest and Etsy shops had me thinking this would be a super cute, yet subtle cake topper. The price tag ($45-$75) had me shocked, though. Once I looked into the formula for what people charge in their etsy shops it made a little more sense, but paying that much just wasn't for me. Off to Michaels!
Cost/Materials: The actual set of peg dolls is regularly priced at $1.49 at Michaels. There are different versions at different price points at AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, etc., but I liked the shape of the ones at Michaels. I didn't have much confidence in my painting skills, so I bought two sets. I ended up spending $2.54 for 2 sets of people. I used my 15% of educator discount, which is why it cost less than regular price. Never buy anything at craft stores without some kind of coupon or discount! They are always running different sales. I'll write a whole tip post about this later.For the paint and paintbrushes, this is where having a crafty mom comes in handy. She had a bunch of old bottles of acrylic paint in the basement, which I sorted through to see which ones still had life in them and which didn't. If you needed to buy the paint, the small bottles are less than a dollar a piece. For brushes I had some of my own junky ones, and then found a couple nicer fine point ones. Use whatever is accessible to you - small details can be done with toothpicks if you don't have nice brushes! And if you borrow brushes from an artsy friend (or mom), make sure you take good care of them by washing them properly immediately after.
How I Did It: I checked out my inspiration pictures, morphed my own hybrid idea of what I wanted, and started to pencil it on to the pegs. Starting with this step is a much better idea than starting with paint on your brush! You can change the pencil design as many times as you need before you get started. Make sure you feel really good about the pencil before beginning to paint.
The only thing that made this project time consuming was that parts of it took multiple coats. The bride's dress I was using an bottle of something along the lines of "iridescent pearl" which was just what I wanted, but also took about 4 coats to really show up. Including that, this project only took about 45 minutes. I'd work on the groom in between coats of the dress to save drying time. In the picture you can see where the white is showing up, but notice that there are already two coats down - yikes! Patience!
Our colors for the wedding are a pink-ish coral, yellow, and gray. I mashed up some pink and yellow paints on a spare piece of cardboard, then dipped in a thin brush to do the flowers. Add a good size drop of paint to make sure it will be thick enough to give some dimension, and just swirl a little circle until you like how it looks. Remember that the more pressure you create by pushing down on the brush, the bigger the circle becomes, so be gentle! After the flowers dried I went back in and did some tiny spots of green as leaves. I then cut out some piece of scrap paper I had left over from another wedding project (table numbers) into diamond shapes, and folded them over a piece of twine and glued them to create a triangle pennant. I wrote "just married" on the center one. My intention is to use small BBQ-like skewers to have them hang between on the cake. You might want to consider a protective/food-safe coating for the peg dolls. I haven't decided on that yet (wedding is over a year away, but I'll update in the comments if I have any later insights about that).
The Outcome: Here it is! The photo came out nice even though it was just taken on my phone - what you don't see is that to hang the ends of the string up I actually have them taped to large water jugs on either side, beyond the crop. Photo magic! ;)
Lessons Learned/Tips: It can be tough to see the pencil lines once you start painting in heavier colors (like the gray suit). I was glad I'd taken a picture of the pegs with the pencil on them before beginning to paint, because I was able to go back and reference them.
Would I Do It Again: Yup, in a heartbeat! And I'd make them for family and friends if they ever wanted them. This was a fun, quick, cheap project.
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Update: I made a veil! Took a scrap of white tulle (small roll purchased for $1 at Dollar Tree), bunched it up along one side, put some Fabri-Tac glue on it, and squished it between two pieces of plastic (packaging from the tulle) until it dried. This allowed the material to stay stuck to itself, but not to stick to the plastic it was getting squished between. The glue was still sufficiently tacky to adhere it to the peg doll, but I did add a bit of hot glue just in case.
The only thing that made this project time consuming was that parts of it took multiple coats. The bride's dress I was using an bottle of something along the lines of "iridescent pearl" which was just what I wanted, but also took about 4 coats to really show up. Including that, this project only took about 45 minutes. I'd work on the groom in between coats of the dress to save drying time. In the picture you can see where the white is showing up, but notice that there are already two coats down - yikes! Patience!
The Outcome: Here it is! The photo came out nice even though it was just taken on my phone - what you don't see is that to hang the ends of the string up I actually have them taped to large water jugs on either side, beyond the crop. Photo magic! ;)
Update: I made a veil! Took a scrap of white tulle (small roll purchased for $1 at Dollar Tree), bunched it up along one side, put some Fabri-Tac glue on it, and squished it between two pieces of plastic (packaging from the tulle) until it dried. This allowed the material to stay stuck to itself, but not to stick to the plastic it was getting squished between. The glue was still sufficiently tacky to adhere it to the peg doll, but I did add a bit of hot glue just in case.
