Repurposed Trophies: Cupcake Stands

I brought home several old trophies from a neighbor’s garage sale and thought I’d tackle a fun repurpose project. There’s been some pretty cool things done with vintage trophies, like this trophy coat rack on by Kate Pruitt found on Design Sponge– or these fantastic bottle stoppers featured this month in Country Living magazine made by Shannon Vance and Robin Sweeney of Stash Style.Here’s my trophy scrap pile. I wish I’d taken a few shots before disassembling most of them. It would have helped a lot in the rebuilding process. There are several toppers in my stash, which will be fun to interchange on my cupcake stands depending on the event! There are a few round wreath ones that would work great with a custom graphic printed off the computer and adhered to the center. I parted out the metals (and faux metals) and painted them with metallic silver spray paint. (If spraying plastic, it helps to coat pieces first with a primer such as Kilz primer/sealer spray.) None of these will be coming in contact with food, by the way.I poked the screws of the topper pieces down into a piece of cardboard atop my large recycling bin to keep them upright and staying in place.I spray painted the wood pieces hot pink, but of course can repaint to any color any time. I think all silver would look great. The pillars could also be wrapped with a patterned paper such as gift wrap or scrapbook paper.For the trays of one stand, I used two pie tart pans. I drilled a center hole in each large enough for the inner rod of the trophy to slide through.

For the trays of the other stand, I used sturdy cardboard 14-in scalloped-edge silver cake platters, again drilling center holes.

I reassembled the trophy parts like Tinker Toys, piecing and parting out different sections of one trophy for another, sliding stacking pieces onto the rods and screwing them all back together with their nuts. This is where your photos of the disassembling would come in handy as you may forget what fits best with what. This project is actually quite simple in concept, but does take a bit of extra dexterity or third hand if available.If you want to use doilies on your trays, you can add them when stacking pieces, or simply cut a side slit and center hole in them and slip them under the loosened trophy pieces.Once all my pieces were put back together with the pans and trays now acting as tiered stands, I headed off to my favorite sweet shop for cupcakes! (You didn’t think I was going to bake too, did you?) Why should I when I live only minutes away from Sift Cupcake & Dessert Bar, winners of Food Networks Cupcake Wars!

A very special thank you to Allie, the manager at the Cotati location for loading up my repurposed trophy cupcake stands with delicious delectables!Simple. Thrifty. Fun. Delicious!