Try It Tuesday - DIY Cupcake Wall Art!

I am so excited to share this project with you! For those of you that know me, you know that we are in the process of adopting our 3 month old daughter whom was placed with us in November. We are beyond excited! So, with a new baby comes a new nursery! What to choose, what to choose for a theme! Something as sweet as she is - Cupcakes!

I am hoping that she will like them, too! :)

So, when searching for Christmas gifts for her, I was researching anything and everything "cupcake". I saw some cute wall art on Amazon that I loved, but it was about $40 just for one this size! Yikes! OK, the wheels got turning and I decided to try my own version. 
 
You can probably make your own kind of designs by using this method even if you don't want it to be "cupcake". Ice cream would be cute, flowers, butterflies, etc. The possibilities are pretty much endless!



Most of the supplies you see I got at Joann.com on clearance or in the store with a 50% coupon. I NEVER pay full price there...it is awesome!

Here are the supplies you will need:


-Canvas size of your choice
-Acrylic paints - This is Martha Stewart pearl paint
-Paint brush - I just used foam that I already
-Scrapbooking paper with design of your choice
-Hot glue and glue gun
-Jumbo Snow-Tex  (Jo-Ann Fabrics or Amazon)
-Tiny beads for the sprinkles
-Small red pom-pom
-Scissors, pencil
-Ziploc bag & frosting-spreader knife thingy!
-Optional masking or painter's tape

First, I decided on the colors and style of the paint. I kept it pretty simple since the scrapbook paper design was a bit crazy. I didn't want the canvas totally solid though. I picked stripes and taped them off before I began painting. The biggest thing to remember is that you need to sort of "dab" the paint when you get near the tape. Since the canvas isn't perfectly smooth, it may leak a bit if you "push" the paint around with the brush. Use thin layers when painting to reduce leakage as well. Let air dry completely. Then remove tape.

Air drying with masking tape - worked well!

 



Now, take your scrapbook paper and fold it like a paper fan back and forth in the direction you want it to go. I recommend making the folds very small so that your snow medium will be able to cover up the edges of the paper when you apply it. I made the mistake of making them a bit too big and when the medium dried and shrank a bit, you can see "down" the top of the cupcake wrapper.  Smaller folds will prevent this.

 

Once you have folded the paper, you need to decide how high you want the wrapper to be in relation to your canvas. Cut it to size and hot glue in place from the back. I recommend gluing the top of every other paper fold first so that the top of the wrapper is the shape you want it. Then, I squish the bottom of the paper together a bit tighter than the top of the "wrapper" to give the illusion that the cupcake is rounded rather than rectangular.

Paper hot glued in place

Next, you want to roughly sketch the outline of your cupcake frosting. I used a pencil, starting at the top where I wanted the peak of the frosting to be. Then I "poofed" it down to where I wanted it to meet the paper.

Now you want to decide on the texture of your cupcake frosting. I practiced first and wanted two different textures. I piped the snow-tex into a Ziploc bag and snipped the end off, just as if I were piping frosting onto real cupcakes.  For the second, I used a regular cake-spreader knife (what's the real name for it? who knows!) and "spread" the frosting on.  Here are the designs I practiced.

*Tip: you can also add your paint to tint this "frosting". I used a soft pink for one, it is just hard to see the difference in my photos.

Then, it is time for the real thing! After I was done with both, I did find that I liked the "circular" piping pattern much more than the frosted-knife thing! ;)

You can see here how when it dried, the top of the wrapper did not appear to be "under" the frosting. That is why I would recommend making smaller folds for your paper.

Now you can see above that right after I piped on the "frosting", I sprinkled it with small beads for the sprinkles. I gently pressed them onto the Snow-Tex after to make sure they stuck when it dried.

For the cherry, I used a small red pom-pom. I wanted it to look less "bold" since the red color didn't really match the room's décor. I made it a "candied" cherry by dabbing a bit of the paint in a random pattern on the pom-pom before gluing it to the canvas at the top of the frosting.

*I think this could also work with some caulking from Lowe's or Home Depot if you can't find the Snow-Tex!

And that's it! It was SO much fun making them for our daughter! Once I get the room done, I am going to take a photo...I am doing LOTS of DIY for it!

Have you made your own wall art? I would love to hear how you did it! Did you try this on your own? Let me know!

Don't forget to share this on Facebook! Or Pin it for later! :)

Check out my list of other DIY projects as well!