DIY Cupcake Bouquets

I made these cupcake bouquets as the centerpieces for my wedding tables both to make the expense on flowers much less and to make up for the small cake we had. In the end, the total cost was less than $100 to make 9 of them. And no one even ate the cake because they got their fill of cupcakes.

We got the pots through random sources such as freecycle.com, scrap stores, etc. No need to buy them new or have them all match. Ours were all different and gave a rustic, bohemian appeal, which was the style of my wedding.

This was my first time attempting these cupcake bouquets and the main advice I would give is make your own frosting. With all that we were doing on the wedding, and Boober's decision to take a trip to Tahoe the week before, I went with canned frosting from Betty Crocker. It melts way, way to easily. In the end I made it work by adding corn starch and powdered sugar to stiffen it up. But there were a few casualties.

This is how I made these, step by step:

1. Fill a flower pot or vase with several ceramic tiles, or rocks, or something equally heavy to weigh it down so it does not tip over when the cupcakes are put on.

2. Cut a styrofoam ball in half. I used 5-6" balls as that is what fit into my flower pots. For that size, you will need about 10-12 medium-sized cupcakes.

3. Wrap a half-ball of styrofoam in green tissue paper to keep from poisoning your guests.

4. Stick 3 large skewers into the bottom, flat part, of the half ball of styrofoam. Have them sticking slightly outward so that when you stick it into the pot they help to stablize it.

5. Make your cupcakes - If you are going to use a box mix you must use Duncan Hines - not Betty Crocker. The BC ones are too moist and fall apart easily. Also, I substituted 50% of the oil with vegetable shortening to make it a thicker batter. I made the cupcakes a week in advance, froze them and then defrosted them the day before the wedding so I could put them on the displays.

6. Make holes in the bottom of your cupcake with a toothpick - Stick the bottom of your cupcakes with a toothpick and make three different holes in the shape of a triangle. (I tried doing it with 1 or 2 toothpicks, but they fell off. I highly recommend doing three.) Then stick three toothpicks into the styrofoam ball with the same shape and push your cupcake onto the toothpicks by matching up the holes.

NOTE - put unfrosted cupcakes onto the ball first. It is much harder to do once they are frosted.

7. Using a 1M size piping tip, frost the cupcakes in a circular motion starting in the center of each cupcake. That is how I frosted them to make them look like roses. But there are tons of pictures online that show different ways of decorating. Do this is close to your event as possible and ensure you keep them in a cool space so they do not melt off.

8. We transported them by putting them in boxes and propping them up with someone in the backseat to hold them. With 3 girls, including 1 driving, we managed to get 9 different bouquets through a 10-minute drive with damage to only 1 cupcake. If you have time, it would be ideal to frost them in the event space to avoid having to transport.

Feel free to ask any questions about how to do this or about how I did it. I am far from an expert, but I gave it a go and everyone loved them. Mostly they were super delicious.