June 26, 2016

DIY: A Non-Cake Birthday Cake

David's birthday was this weekend and I struggled with what to get him.  Gifts aren't really either one of our love languages, and there wasn't a whole lot of useful "stuff" I could think of to buy for him.  I had contemplated booking us a getaway for his birthday weekend, but it ended up being pretty busy so I didn't think that would work.


I eventually decided to try my hand at a "soda can" cake.  I had seen several ideas for this on Pinterest and thought it was a fun idea.  I didn't really follow a tutorial, just winged it a little.  At first I tried using plates between the layers, but since they didn't lay flat, they didn't work very well.  I set out to the store to buy some of the cardboard cake plates, but they only sold them in sets of 4 and I would have had to have bought a few different sizes to make it work.  I settled on a cupcake stand instead and the cardboard layers from that worked well.

I put the bottom layer of Dr Pepper cans on my cake plate and arranged them.  I taped some ribbon on and then did the remaining layers of Mountain Dew and A&W Rootbeer.  I put masking tape on a few places around each layer of cans to help the ribbons stick tightly and then I just taped the ends together on the back instead of trying to tie them off.  Since David seems to like activities more than stuff, I also taped "coupons" around the cake for different things.  I used some of the coupons from this blog post about a wallet surprise and then I made up some of my own.  The coupons included things like a night of Top Golf, a Bike Ride for 2, his choice of a home-cooked dinner, a night of Baseball watching, etc.

I topped it off with 29 straws for candles and then hid it for a few days until his birthday. 

Saturday morning I brought it out to the living room and presented it to him along with a card.  Now he's got some drinks to enjoy and some coupons for date nights down the road.  

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