Brooch Cake Topper Tutorial

Soooo, as you can tell (if you’ve been reading), I’m in complete “get r done” mode when it comes to completing all the little tasks left for the wedding.

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I know that with limited weekends and the knowledge that time is ticking, I’ve kicked my weekends into hyper drive. I have already completed the cake topper, now you can read how! Lucky you ;) It really was pretty easy. Well, it was easy once I decided what I wanted to do (surprise, surprise).

Of course, just a plain old brooch cake topper wasn’t going to work. I also wanted to incorporate Michael’s (soon to be “our”) last name initial. Revisiting my two main inspirations for the cake topper:

The supplies I sloooooowly gathered included brooches, floral wire, my trusty hot glue gun (I think I’ll call him Earl), Styrofoam half dome, and a “P”. Other then the brooches, I bought my supplies from Hobby Lobby and Michael’s.

First, I painted my P. Originally, it was a gold color with black undertones. It basically didn’t go with anything. I painted it turquoise/aqua, and realized this wasn’t good enough either. To give it a shabby chic look, I followed this tutorial and sanded it with a piece of sand paper I found in Michael’s tool box. It must have been a pretty rough grade, because it only took a couple swipes and it was perfect.

Next, I Earl’d (i.e. hot glued) thick floral wire to the back of the brooches. I bent the wire in an L shape, and glued roughly half an inch of the L to the back of the brooch, and left about an inch or two hanging off the brooch. There was no scientific way to do this. I judged the brooch by its weight and size and eye balled the length of wire I thought it would take to hold it in place. Side note, I chose to use mainly smaller brooches, and only incorporated one or two larger brooches. Using smaller brooches allowed for more maneuverability, and it was easier to place on the topper. I also hot glued a piece of the wire to the back of the P.

Then, I placed the P where I wanted it on the Styrofoam dome, and pushed the piece of wire into the styrofoam. I placed it slightly to the side, like the M in the above inspiration picture. I then placed the larger flower (the large green one in the below picture) where I thought it would look the best, and pushed its piece of wire into the styrofoam as well.

Sorry, this is the only picture I have of the entire construction of the topper. If you look closely, you can see the black wire that is glued to the pink brooch sticking out the back. Looking at the P, you can see where the color is sanded off, to give it an antique look.

To finish, I filled in the blanks! I pushed, prodded, and poked the rest of those brooches into every little crevice I could find! No piece of Styrofoam was left unsparkled. The last brooch to go into place was the Texas on the left.

Now we have a one of a kind cake topper! I have no idea what we’ll do with it afterwards, but there it is in all it’s sparkly glory.

Are you a sentimental person? What would you recommend doing with the cake topper after the wedding?

P.S. I promise to go back to taking pictures with a real camera. My phone just makes it soooo easy.