Mother’s Day Gift Idea: DIY Paper Cake Homemade With Love
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J. Sorelle
Every mom deserves something sweet on Mother’s Day. This year, we’re treating our amazing mom to a sweet slice of cake. Better yet, we’re treating her to an entire handmade, layered cake. It’s a no-bake, no-fuss cake that meets her stringent dietary standards. Plus, it won’t ever spoil. It’s a keepsake for our Mom to remember that she takes the cake as the best mom ever!
This beautiful DIY layered cake is made of paper; the best, most colorful paper.
We like to do most everything as a family, so we made an entire family of cakes. Our mom gets the grand, three-layer cake, and we made three additional “baby cakes” to celebrate our own motherhood. Just like our personalities, each cake is vibrant, yet unique.
We filled each layer of the cake with fun goodies our mom loves, such as photographs, bubbly Champagne, jewelry and gift cards. This “boxed cake” might be the best wrapping job we’ve ever done. It’s going to be hard to beat when Christmas comes to town.
So, skip the eggs, flour and sugar; instead, grab your scissors, Astrobrights Papers and glue to COLORIZE your Mother’s Day cake masterpiece. Here’s a tutorial to get your creative juices flowing…
Materials:
- Color Paper and Colored Cardstock, see colors below
- Scissors
- Paper mache boxes
- Glue dots, mini and regular
- Glue stick
- Ruler
- Pencil
- Downloadable Watercolor Printable
- Hot glue gun and hot glue
Steps:
1: Determine the colors of the cakes. For the three-tier cake, we used Rocket Red™, Gamma Green™, Solar White, and Terra Green™ cardstock. You can use the text weight instead of the cardstock weight, but we found that the cardstock weight was more durable when opening and closing the box. For the middle layer, find a floral print online that you love, and print it on Solar White paper, which comes in the Spectrum Pack. If you like the free watercolor printable used, find it here. To get the size you need, re-size as needed in Microsoft Word.
For the black and white baby cake, we used Eclipse Black™ and Stardust White™. For the confetti and rainbow baby cake, we used Plasma Pink™, Pulsar Pink™, Solar Yellow™, Cosmic Orange™, Blast-Off Blue™, Lunar Blue™, Stardust White™, Terrestrial Teal™, and Terra Green™. For the mama bear cake, we used Fireball Fuchsia™ for the melted frosting on top, and we painted Stardust™ White with gold leaf paper for the base of the cake. Follow directions on the gold leaf packaging to add this fun touch of glam to any paper.
2: Measure the size of the box, as well as the lid.
3: Cut the paper according to box measurements. Important note: add 1-2 cm. to the lid width measurements, because you will want it a bit higher than the actual lid to cover the edges of the lid.
4: Add glue dots to the edges and corners of the paper, and begin to wrap the box with paper. It’s best to leave the lid trim for last, so you can make sure the entire rim of the box is covered.
5: Cut any embellishments, or designs you choose to add. Our cakes are pretty and somewhat simple, which best suits us. The embellishments worth noting are the DIY paper flowers, mama bear and rainbow.
To make the flowers, first print flower petals from a template you can find online. Trace onto Rocket Red paper, and then cut. We used a Poppy flower template through our Silhouette Cameo software. But, most petals you find online will work. Next, cut a small triangle on the bottom, center of the petal. This is where you need your hot glue gun. Press hot glue on one side, and gently place the bottom side of the other piece of the petal on top. Continue to do this until you have four petals. Now, just glue each petal on top of each other. Once you have the petals, begin to create the center. We free-handed one small circle in Terra Green, one mini circle in Gamma Green and then leaves in both greens. For extra texture, cut slits in the larger Terra Green circle. Glue that textured circle in the middle of the flower, and then glue the mini Gamma Green circle in the center. Finally, glue the leaves on the bottom of the flower. You can place these all over the cake, or use a couple – it’s up to you!
To make the bear, trace and cut the image of a bear onto cardstock paper. For the words, you can use an electronic cutting machine to cut the words Mama Bear inside the bear. If you don’t have a cutting machine, you can use an X-acto knife to cut the words, or use a Sharpie to write them. Learn more on the J.Sorelle blog.
To create the rainbow, free hand one small arch (the last layer of the rainbow) with a pencil on the bottom of Astrobrights cardstock paper, and then cut five additional arches, each other larger in size than the one before it. Glue each layer on top of each other, beginning with the largest. Next, free hand cute clouds, and glue them to the end of each rainbow.
To stand the bear and the rainbow on the cake, use small wooden toothpicks (with square ends, not pointed) to create mini DIY easels. Dabs hot glue on the ends of the wooden toothpicks to keep them in place on top of the cake. You will need 2 toothpicks per “cake topper.”
6: Fill with gifts, and give to Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day!