Ministry of Craft Tutorial - DIY toadstool wedding cake toppers

This summer I had the pleasure of tutoring a wonderful woodland wedding themed hen party. We made these cute toadstool champagne cork toppers which will be used at the wedding venue as place card holders, wedding cake toppers and even favours. We made loads in one go, you can do the same or just make a couple. You’re only limited by how much champagne you can drink!

Here’s how you can make them yourself at home:

Ingredients:
Champagne corks
Red acrylic paint
White acrylic paint
Kebab sticks or similar
Medium sized paintbrush with flat head
Thin paintbrush with rounded head
Stiff wire
Wirecutters
Natural craft card
Black Sharpie marker
Scissors or craft knife
Glue

 

Ready Steady Go!
After polishing off a few bottles of your favourite fizz (well, it would be rude not to) steady your corks by inserting your sharp kebab stick firmly into the end, as shown. This will allow you to paint all the way round without touching the cork with your fingers.

Squeeze a small amount of each paint into separate receptacles. Don’t add any water to your paint or brush, you want the paint to be as thick and opaque as possible. Using your round headed brush paint the bottom of the cork with the white acrylic paint to create the ‘stalk’. Spread the paint as evenly as you can and avoid blobs of paint which will take ages to dry. When you have finished use a milk bottle or similar to stand your cork in while it dries. Leaving each colour to dry completely is crucial so that you don’t accidentally mix the paints together. You don’t want red and slightly pink toadstools!

Next, using your flat headed brush, paint the top part of the champagne cork with the red acrylic paint, taking care to make a neat line where the red meets the white. And then leave it to dry.

Watching paint dry
In the mean time you can make name cards or flags to go into the top of your toadstools when they are finished.

I made mine by cutting a flag shape out of some natural craft card and gluing it to a 2 inch length of stiff wire. You could make yours in any shape you like but they work best when they are double sided and the end of the wire is sandwiched between them out of sight. This way they look good from all angles too!

Autumnal cheer
When the red paint is totally dry, use the round ended paintbrush again to add polka dots of white paint all over the top of your toadstool. Be generous with the white paint here. It looks good if the spots have a bit of texture to them!

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Again, wait for them to dry completely before man handling them and adding the flags or name cards.

The finished toadstools will add a bit of fun and colour to your wedding banquet, tea party or cake stall.

If you’d like Ministry of Craft to run a workshop for your hen do, party or corporate event then check out our party page and get in touch. If you’d like to share photos of your makes you can join us on facebook , twitter, pinterest and instagram. Don’t forget to tag us in your posts and use #ministryofcraft so we can see what you’re all doing!

 Bottoms up!