{create} cake bunting

This weekend we celebrated a birthday! As you guys might remember, for each family birthday I make whatever cake the birthday boy/girl requests. This time the cake request was a white cake with chocolate frosting. So I got all crazy and made a 14-Layer Cake. Yum! I'm not going to go through the recipe (because I somehow managed to mess it up. Still good, but not right.), but if you follow that link, you'll find it.

There was cake everywhere for awhile!

Now, even though I host birthday parties, and bake lots of birthday cakes, I am the worst at having candles around. I think candles are so festive (!), but can't ever remember to buy them. So I was looking for something to liven up the cake a bit. Then a remembered a super fun project I'd seen over at Victoria's blog A Subtle Revelry: her fabric cake topper. 

Have you all been to Victoria's blog yet? Please go visit. She's an event and prop stylist with the most amazing diy party decor ideas ... which of course translates so well into home decor. She also has a great feature called *reason to celebrate* that features how everyday objects can actually be amazing festive. Her posts  inspire and make me smile every morning.

So, she created a cake topper and I thought I'd share my version with you.

First I gathered up all my supplies: straws, hot glue gun, ribbon and fabric. I was worried at first because we don't have kitchen skewers (and I didn't want to go the store!), but then I remembered the red and white straws from our Christmas party. Perfect! And they set the color scheme for the bunting.

First I tied, and then hot glued a piece of fabric to both straws.

Then I cut strips of fabric, long enough that I could fold them over the ribbon. I also cut out little triangles as well to add more of the traditional bunting effect.

I folded each piece over the ribbon, hot glued them to stay put, and had myself a festive mini-bunting.

Then I simply stuck it in in the cake. This project took me all of 10 minutes, all with materials I had on hand.

And, it upped the cake's festive-factor 100-fold. I'm actually rethinking my stance on candles after this. I think every cake should have a fun bunting adornment.

Victoria also have a very detailed and great tutorial here.

So tell me, what's your favorite way to top a cake?