DIY Pool Noodle Cupcake Stand

I just LOVE planning kids birthday parties and Pinterest! I will have to go back in time and share with you some past parties I’ve done. Back when I seemed to have more time and energy. Ha! I have a tendency to go a bit over the top with all the little details! As our lives have gotten busier, I have tried to rein myself in. It’s hard. Trying to not be crafty when that is who you are is really, really hard!

But my little ROO just turned 7 and wanted another pool party (third year in a row!). In true Amy fashion I started a Pinterest board for inspiration. You can view it here. But I decided to keep the party somewhat simple and focused more on a fun color scheme – teal, red and yellow with a bit of blue thrown in. I used teal plastic tablecloths from Walmart and bought sand buckets from the dollar store for chips. They also had beach netting that worked great layered on top of the simple plastic tablecloths. Gave it some good character. Also from the dollar store were our party favors – each kid got an inflatable ball, tube or toy of some sort.

While at the dollar store, I picked up some pool noodles. I had stumbled upon this really cool idea for a cupcake stand and decided it was going to be my piece de resistance! I changed it up only a little bit. You just need 6 pool noodles in any colors you like (fewer if you want the stand all one color). Cut half of them into 3″ pieces and the others into 8″ pieces. I laid a tape measure across each pool noodle and simply marked the cut lines. Then let my son “saw” the pieces with a bread knife. It cut like butter! And he loved helping. The taller ones will be the center of the cupcake stand and the shorter ones will be on the outside. I laid all my pieces out first before I started hot gluing them together. I am a visual person so I needed to make sure I was going to be happy with the end result.

I bought some thin white elastic from JoAnn’s and swapped it with the bands on some dollar store goggles. I simply adhered with hot glue. This part wasn’t necessary, but it was fun! You could also use a pretty ribbon. I have a boy. So he liked the goggles idea.

I then made the sign and printed my birthday message onto white 12″ x 12″ card stock, cutting random zig zags for emphasis and character. I used double stick tape to attach it to a piece of blue poster board and left about a half inch border, following the same zig zag lines. Taped a bamboo skewer to the back and inserted straight into a pool noodle on the top of the stand and voila! The kids loved the cupcake stand, but I think they loved the cupcakes more, decorated with swirls of pool blue frosting and Teddy Grahams floating in gummy rings under a festive umbrella!

I actually didn’t use all the pool noodle pieces, so we cut the leftovers into smaller pieces, all random widths, no measuring required, and strung them onto some string. We then hung that in the tree above the table and it was super cute and festive.