Halloween treats take center stage in this haunted Halloween cupcake stand! With just a little bit of paint and a few odds and ends, a plain wooden planter box gets a frightful transformation into a ghastly graveyard centerpiece. This is such a cool way to show off your Halloween treats, and it serves as faboolous Halloween party decor, too! Get the full how-to below, and be sure to check out our "Happy Birthday, Boo!" Halloween Birthday Party to see this awesome dessert display in action!
Begin by lightly painting a DIY Unfinished Wood Planter Box with white acrylic paint. We're aiming for a distressed-looking box when it's all said and done, so allowing some of the wood to show through the paint is totally okay.
Mix a small amount of black acrylic paint into the white paint. Lightly dip your paint brush into the paint, then brush the paint onto a disposable plate until there's only a small amount of paint remaining on the brush. Dry brush the gray paint onto the box sparsely to create a distressed look. Allow to dry.
While the box is drying, you can work on the wood pieces that you'll be using to create your pedestal cupcake stands. Use black acrylic paint and a paint brush to paint six DIY Unfinished Wood Circles, six Round Unfinished Wood Beads and six dowel rods black. We used three 10-inch and three 12-inch dowel rods. Be sure to paint both sides and the edges of the wood circles. Allow to dry.
Use hot glue to secure one wooden bead onto one end of each dowel rod. When that is secured, hot glue each rod and bead to the center of a wood circle.
Once the box and pedestals are completely dry, line the inside of the box with blocks of foam. Cut to fit if necessary. Insert the pedestals into the foam, alternating heights, making sure they are secured and stand up well on their own.
Cover the foam with Green Moss. If you use a filler like crumpled up black tissue paper in the bottom of the box, about three bags of moss will be needed to cover the top.
Now it's time to start making this cupcake stand look creepy! Use hot glue to attach Scary Spiders "crawling" around the outside of the box.
Stretch some White Spider Webs over each pedestal to add to the creepy factor of the display.
Ready to make this dessert display come to life? Let's start adding goodies! On top of the moss at the base of the pedestals, add bite-sized treats topped with Halloween picks from the Basic Boo Cupcake Kit. We used chocolate donut holes in mini cupcake wrappers.
Finally, add cupcakes decorated with the Basic Boo Cupcake Kit to the pedestals and display the haunted Halloween cupcake stand at your Halloween party!
See the whole Happy Birthday, Boo! Halloween Birthday Party and don't miss out on the tutorial for a Ghost Bag Toss Party Game and Marbled Haunted House Place Cards.