Guest Post by Tammy of "She Wears Flowers"

I am so delighted to share with you a blogging friend of mine:

I am Tammy from she wears flowers. This is my place to share the crafts and projects that I am working on. If I am making a craft for myself, I figure it is only nice to share, so I share it with others, too. One of the highlights about blogging is meeting the sweetest people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I love all of the great ideas that I get from others, too. It’s also my favorite excuse to avoid things I am not fond of like housework! {wink, wink!}

I hope you will stop by she wears flowers to see what I have been up to.



For those of you who want to make a felt birthday cake with parts you can change, here it is!

This is the no-calorie, enjoy-it-year-round kind of cake. Perfect!

Today I’ll share the tutorial for the cake and frosting. You can go to my blog HERE to get the tutorial for the cake decorations.

Materials

sturdy round cardboard box with a lid

1/2 yard 72” felt for each color of frosting

acrylic paint

newsprint

flat sheet of ductwork metal

tin snips

white electrical tape

E6000 glue (and clamps if your box lid is sunken in)

1/2 inch white ribbon

hot glue

Instructions

Paint the edge of the lid a cake color. I started with cream for vanilla, but it was too light to show the frosting filling, so I went with a bright yellow—lemon.

I painted the edge and then set it on the box to dry.





The first “here’s what NOT to do” part: I did the next part by sewing a felt strip onto felt, but it made the lid too tight.

I will be purchasing another box (boo!) so I can paint the sides and then hot glue on 1/2 wide white ribbon for the frosting between the layers. Also, you want to glue the ribbon on while you have the lid on the box so you can eyeball the center which is slightly different than the center with the lid off. This is the basic idea of what you want to have when you are done, though.

When someone peeks under the frosting, they will see more delicious cake and not a plain box! This part is not necessary, but I like it a lot! You can barely see it through the felt frosting and it makes the cake look more real.

To make the top magnetic, cut a piece of ductwork (which is thinner than sheet metal) to fit on top of the lid. I found mine in the heating and A/C section of Lowes and just bought the smallest, cheapest flat piece available. It was about 18” x 36” and cost $5.44. There is a lot left over for other projects!

Trace around the top of the box (not the lid) with a Sharpie marker being careful to stay close to the box and not squishing the box or distorting the shape as you hold it.

Cut out the circle about 1/4 inch inside of the traced line using the tin snips. I eyeballed this line and ended up cutting again and again to get it small enough, but it worked fine and didn’t take long. Incidentally, tin snips are around $10 at the hardware store and I have used them for a lot of projects. If you don’t have any, it isn’t such a bad thing to have on hand!

Wrap the edge all around in electrical tape. Electrical tape is very flexible and will easily stretch around the curves. You can stick it along the whole circle with about 1/2 on the top and 1/2 on the bottom stretching it around the curves as you move around the circle. This will help protect children from sharp edges.

Glue the metal to the top of the box (no picture—sorry) using E6000. Once it is in place, flip the lid over so the metal is down with the lid on top of it and place a very heavy object (I used a stack of glass mixing bowls) inside the lid to flatten the lid against the metal. The lids tend to sink in towards the box and this will help the metal to stick properly and to flatten the top of the box a bit. You may have to clamp it together somehow to hold it until the glue dries.



Turn the box lid upside down and trace around it on a piece of newsprint or tissue paper. Again, be sure to trace right next to the lid and do not distort the shape of the lid.



After tracing the original shape (pink in the picture), use a ruler to mark 3/8 of an inch larger by placing dots around the pink circle. Connect the dots (black line) and cut out on that line. Try to be as accurate as possible.

Use the pattern you just made to cut the felt for the top of the frosting section.

Cut a strip that is as wide as the width of the side of your box plus 1/4 inch. Mine was 5 inches wide so my strip was 5 1/4 inches wide. It should be as long as the circumference of your box plus a couple of inches. I just cut the entire length of my felt and cut off the excess at the end of the sewing part.



Cut another strip 1” wide and the length of the felt.



For each color/flavor of frosting you should have one circle, one wide strip and one narrow strip.

To sew, place the wide strip along the edge of the circle. Sew in place using a scant 1/4 inch seam allowance gently pulling the strip along the curve of the circle as you sew it. When you get to the end, overlap the strip about an inch. Backstitch in place. Cut off excess strip piece.

Turn right side out.



IMPORTANT: Place frosting over the box with the lid in place and adjust the fit. Turn the box sideways and trim any excess edges on the bottom edge of the frosting piece. Be sure the frosting lines up with the bottom of the box all the way around so the frosting line is even when it is sewn in place.



There are two ways to sew the fancy frosting. First, you can gather the narrow strip using a gathering stitch and pulling it to the desired “ruffle-y-ness.” Then, sew it in place along the bottom edge of the frosting piece.

I thought it would be prettier to try ruching the narrow strip instead to make it look more like frosting. I had never done this before and I was thrilled with how well it worked! Ruching is a gathering stitch, but instead of sewing in a straight line, sew in a zig zag or scallop line. (Good tutorial HERE)



The width of your zig zag or scallop will change the look a little, so you may want to practice first. You will also want to mark your fabric in equal amounts to ruche evenly. It takes longer than standard gathering, but what a fun difference. You do not need to fold your strip since neither side will fray. I did not mark my strip, actually, but it turned out pretty evenly because I zig zagged to the same place on each side of the sewing machine. It sounds crazy, but it worked out just fine.

Ruche the felt. (Do not backstitch at the beginning or ending of your sewing line.)

Pull the threads to gather the felt. Adjust the gathers so the scallops are evenly spaced.

Lay the fancy frosting along the bottom edge of the frost piece so the very tops of the scallops are hanging off of the frosting piece.Sew in place along the center of the felt.

The finished piece showed up best in chocolate, so here you go!

Now, you can take the frosting piece off and on easily change to a different flavor of frosting. Thanks to the sturdy box underneath, the frosting is neat and smooth without the pillow-lumpy look that foam cakes tends to get. The frosting pieces you aren’t using can be stored inside the cake where they won’t (cross your fingers) get lost!



I made white frosting because it can easily be for any occasion, pink frosting because I have 3 girls who love pink stuff and chocolate frosting because that is the cake of choice around here—chocolate chocolate-mmm, mmm, mmm!

It looks so real, that my three-year-old walked into the kitchen, saw this on the counter, and with her eyes wide (wondering how she missed out on the fact that I baked and frosted a cake!!), asked me for some cake to eat! I couldn’t help it, I laughed!

Doesn’t it make you want a lick of that rich and creamy chocolate frosting?

(Rich and creamy until you actually taste it, that is!)



And, don’t forget the yummy cake inside!

Don’t forget to stop by she wears flowers to see what else I have going on

and to get the tutorial for the decorations, too!



Thanks, Natalie, for inviting me to your birthday party! I hope your birthday is great!