Cupcake Holder DIY - A Step by Step Tutorial

Here is another one of my DIY cupcake holder (here’s the other one). I made this for my son’s 12th birthday party. And it was crafted to match the theme colors of his Marvel Superheroes party which were red, black, and silver.

A 3 tier cupcake holder in silver and red

The cupcake holder I have in the image above is a remake of the original one I made for his birthday. And that is simply because I did not capture any step by step photos while making it then. So I thought I will recreate it and this time, do a detailed step by step tutorial.

And since this is a remake, you will see some slight differences between this and the original one I made for the birthday. See the original one below:

A red and silver cupcake holder with Superheroes themed cupcakes

You can see that the cake boards I used in my original DIY cupcake holder were silver. So I did not have to wrap them up in silver paper again. For this tutorial, however, I only had gold ones available at home, so I wrapped them in silver paper. You can use the same technique to wrap your boards if you want them in any other color. The other difference is that the base board for my original cupcake holder was a thick cake drum. For this tutorial, I used a thinner board. The cake drum provides additional stability but its really OK to use a normal cake board.

And also, the red wrapping paper for the center core of the original holder was glittery but not shiny. However, the one in the tutorial below is a shiny version. I could not find the same type of paper that I used originally at my local craft shop. Hence I had to settle for the red shiny wrapping paper instead.

How to Make A Cupcake Holder

These were the main supplies I used to make this DIY cupcake holder:

Cake boards – I used a total of 3 ; 1 for the top measuring 6 inches in diameter, the one in the center measuring 8 inches, and the bottom one measuring 11 inches in diameter.
Styrofoam cylinder blocks – I used 2 of these blocks for the cupcake holder and they formed the center core. Each was 3 inches in diameter and approximately 3.75 inches in height.
Wrapping papers – For this project, I used 2 different colors; silver for the boards, and red for the styrofoam core.
Paper glue – I used paper glue to stick the wrapping paper to the cake boards and the styrofoam cores.
Hot glue – I used this stronger glue to hold the cupcake holder together, ie to stick and hold the cake boards and the foams together.

Wrapping the cake boards

I started by wrapping the boards, one by one. To wrap them, I placed each cake board on the reserve side of my wrapping paper. Then I drew an outline around the cake boards. And then another outline after that, this time about one inch larger than the cake board.

A cake board on a piece of round paper with the edges cut in intervals of about 1 inch

And then I cut the papers following the larger circle outline. Next, I made short snips all around the cut outs. In cutting those snips, I made sure they did not exceed beyond the inner outline. And then I applied glue all around and wrapped the paper around the cake boards as shown in the image.

You will need to make small folds on the wrapping paper as you wrap it around the cake board. The idea is to make sure the board is wrapped as neatly as possible. The cake boards will form the tiers on the cupcake holder.

And this was how the board looked like on the front side once wrapping was complete.

3 cake boards wrapped in silver paper for the DIY cupcake holder

I wrapped all three cake boards the same way.

Using a ruler to measure the height of a styrofoam block

Next were the center foam cores. To wrap these, I measure the height of each block. The ones I used here were 3.75 inches high.

Wrapping the styrofoam blocks

I cut out a long strip of red wrapping paper following the width of the foam foam which I measured to be 3.75 inches earlier, with additional allowance of 1 inch on both sides (see the image below). And then, similar to the cake boards, I made short snips on both sides of the paper strip before applying paper glue all over it.

A styrofoam cylinder on a piece of long paper

To wrap the foam, I placed it in the center on the paper strip and made sure there is enough allowance on both ends. And then I wrapped it tightly around the foam core.

Once done, I folded the sides in exactly the same way as I wrapped the cake boards.

Red paper wrapped around a styrofoam cylinder

Red paper wrapped around a styrofoam cylinder to form the core of a DIY cupcake holder

2 styrofoam cylinders wrapped in red shiny paper for a 3 tier cupcake holder

This was how both the core foams for the cupcake holder looked like after the wrapping process was completed.

Assembling the tiered DIY cupcake holder

A red cylinder styrofoam block on a piece of round silver cake board.

To assemble the tiered cupcake holder, I started with the largest cake board as the base for the cupcake holder. I then used hot glue to stick the first foam core right in the center of the board.

A red cylinder block of styrofoam wrapped in red paper, in between 2 silver cake boards

And then I attached the second largest cake board on the foam core also with hot glue.

3 silver cake boards with 2 cylinder blocks of red paper wrapped foam blocks in between to form a DIY cupcake holder

And I repeated the process for the next foam core and the top most cake board.

To make sure all the components stick securely to each other, I placed a heavy book on the cupcake holder and left it there for about 30 minutes. And that was basically it, my DIY cupcake holder.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and find it useful in making your own tiered DIY cupcake holder 🙂

Tiered DIY Cupcake Holder