DIY birthday candle crown

Brittany

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September 22, 2014

You guys loved the birthday cake chandelier. Hooray! Well, continuing on the Lars birthday celebration, here’s another for you, a birthday candle crown. Your birthday is no longer complete without it, right? Ashley nailed it again with this fun crown that your special birthday friend will love.

photography by Trisha Zemp
crafting by Ashley Isenhour
styling by Brittany Jepsen

Get the full tutorial below!

Materials:

scissors
cardstock
1/6 yard of fabric
gold thread for embellishment
safety pin
glue gun
paper straws
tissue paper
paint (optional)
crepe paper or fabric strip

Step 1: Cut a strip of posterboard 1.5″ wide and long enough to fit a little loosely around the guest of honor’s head (the candles will take up some space and make the crown fit more snugly). Glue ends together.

Step 2: Cut 3 1″ strips of fabric and 3 strands of gold thread at the same length. Hot glue the end of a gold thread to one end of each of the fabric strips. Secure the ends of the strips together with a safety pin and pin into your carpet / old upholstered chair / the pajama bottoms you’re wearing. Braid strands together. Braid enough to go around your crown twice.

Step 3: Hot glue fabric braids around posterboard base. Tuck end to the inside of the base and secure with hot glue.

Step 4: Cut paper straws in half to make candles. You can paint them or leave them as they are. Cut 1″ squares of tissue paper. Pinch each square in the middle and twist. Squirt a bit of hot glue in the end of each straw and stick the twisted end of your tissue in there. (This great idea is from Icing Design).

Step 5: Hot glue the base of each candle along the inside of your posterboard base. Try to space candles as evenly as possible.
Step 6: Cut a fabric or crepe paper strip and glue over the candles along the inside of the crown. This just makes the crown more comfortable to wear.

DIY Birthday cake chandelier

Brittany

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September 18, 2014

1

It was this time 6 years ago that I started The House that Lars Built for a residential design class for graduate school. I used my new blog as a place to put my homework assignments and my ode to Trader Joes* and other frivolous yet totally important stuff. It continued that way for a couple of years until our wedding was released online and people started to ask how we made the decor from it, like the big paper flowers. Soon I was getting asked to contribute DIYs to different websites and all of a sudden, without realizing it, Lars became a DIY site. Though it’s only been a couple of years that I found the DIY focus on Lars, it’s been SIX years since I started it for class and that deserves a celebration, non?

To kick off the birthday festivities Ashley made a birthday cake chandelier that would be perfect to create as an heirloom piece and bring it out for each holiday. She took the traditional tiered chandelier, flipped it upside down, added some birthday candles, and voila! Let’s get to it shall we?

photography by Trisha Zemp
craft by Ashley Isenhour
styling by Brittany Jepsen

Click below to see the step by step tutorial!

Materials:

scissors, x-acto knife, cardboard, posterboard or cardstock, 3/4 yard of fabric for cake (optional), pencil, ruler, glue gun, pipe cleaner, 1/6 yard of contrasting fabric for trim, pipe cleaners, paper straws, tissue paper, paint (optional), embroidery thread

Step 1: Use your x-acto knife to cut two circles (one about 3″ smaller in diameter than the other) out of cardboard. Cut two circles of the same sizes out of colored cardstock. Mine were 12″ and 9″ in diameter. Nesting mixing bowls make great templates 🙂 Glue the cardstock circles to the corresponding cardboard circles. These circles will be the tops of your cake layers.

Step 2: Cut 6″ strips out of posterboard or colored cardstock.

Step 3: Cut 8″ strips of your fabric. Place your posterboard strip on top of your fabric strip. Fold the extra inch of fabric over the bottom of your strip and secure with hot glue. Pull the extra inch of fabric at the top taut, fold it over the top of the posterboard strip, and secure with hot glue. Repeat steps for the wall of your top cake layer. (Note: the easier way is obviously to use a colored posterboard or cardstock to begin with… I just go I little crazy sometimes 😉 )

Step 4: Squirt a 3″ strip of hot glue 1″ down from the top of your posterboard strip. Place the edge of your cardboard circle on the strip of glue. Squirt another 3″ strip of glue and roll the cardboard circle along the glue strip. Continue this process until the entire wall of your cake layer is wrapped around the cardboard circle. Secure the overlapping end with hot glue. Repeat process for the other cake layer.

Step 5: Squirt hot glue along the bottom rim of your top cake layer. Attach top cake layer to the bottom tape layer. You may need to squirt more hot glue along the seam once the top layer is placed on the bottom layer.

Step 6: Twist the ends of a few pipe cleaners together to make one long pipe cleaner (long enough to wrap around your bottom cake layer). Hot glue one end of a fabric strip to the pipe cleaner and wrap the pipe cleaner so that it is completely covered. Hot glue wrapped pipe cleaner around the bottom rim of your bottom cake layer. Repeat at the top rim of your bottom cake layer and top rim of your top cakelayer.

Step 7: Cut paper straws in half to make candles. You can paint them or leave them as they are. Cut 1″ squares of tissue paper. Pinch each square in the middle and twist. Squirt a bit of hot glue in the end of each straw and stick the twisted end of your tissue in there. (This genius idea is from Icing Design Online).

Step 8: Hot glue the base of each candle on the inside rim of your top layer.

Step 9: Cut 6 strands of embroidery thread to the same length. Bundle threads together and tie tight double knots along the length of the bundle. Cut to the sides of each knot. Hot glue these “faux french knots” onto your cake layers as decoration.

Step 10: Cut 2 long strands of embroidery thread to the same length. Holding the strands together, fold them in half and tie a knot at the mid point, leaving a loop. Hot glue the four loose ends to the inside rim of your top cake layer. Space the four ends as evenly as you can. Once glue is dry and secure use loop to hang cake chandelier.

*Are you just as puzzled why there isn’t one in Provo? Let’s get it here! Join the Facebook group! I’m serious! I do love me my TJs and I made the Facebook group to prove it.

Birthday pancake cake

Brittany

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September 23, 2014

6

A pancake cake. I know, I know “but the calories, the sugar…”, SNOOZE FEST! It’s a PAN and it’s a CAKE! A pancake cake! And it’s delicious, which these days is my hashtag 1 requirement. Can you imagine anything more scrumptious to arrive to than a pancake cake surprise awaiting the birthday boy/girl?

Photography by Laura Sumrak
baking by ME Hammond

Check out more birthday projects here
And more delicious recipes here

See the full recipe below

Birthday Cake Pancake Batter:

1 1/2 c. flour
3/4 c. funfetti cake mix (yellow cake mix also works great)
1 t. baking powder
1 T. sugar
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla extract
3/4 c. milk
pinch of salt
Sprinkles

1. Mix together dry ingredients
2. Add eggs, vanilla, and milk to dry ingredients (whisk well, try to avoid clumps)
3. Fry pancakes in a medium high griddle
4. Top with syrup and sprinkles
5. Eat up!

Birthday Cake Topper with Brother

Brittany

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March 18, 2020

1

As you can probably tell by now, we can’t stop talking about how much we love National Craft Month. It’s the perfect time to celebrate your creativity and get to work crafting up all of the amazing things you’ve been thinking about. If you are feeling like you are in a bit of a craft funk we have teamed up with our friends at Brother to bring you a sweet yet impactful project to get you out of your slump and on your way to crafting town!

Using the Brother P-touch ELITE we created these colorful flag cake toppers inspired by our newest line from Abby Low found in the Lars Print Shop. You may know by now that we love celebrating and since we are already celebrating craft month we figured we may as well celebrate anyone and everyone out there with a March birthday with these adorable birthday flag cake toppers.

Birthdays are so very special and we tend to go bananas decorating and that’s part of the reason we love using the P-touch ELITE because of how easy it makes it to create personalized ribbon! Think up your birthday phrases and print them on ribbon (the P-touch Embellish ELITE prints on tape too!) so you can create the perfect phrases, specific for your birthday queen or king!

Here’s how you do it!

Directions:

Pick your color palette
Paint your skewers to the colors you have chosen. We painted three skewers of each color and used 21 skewers and six colors (the more the better in our opinion)
Set aside to dry.
Paint the wood beads in the same palette, three of each color in all six colors.
Set aside to dry.
Download the Ptouch Design&Print app to your phone!
Select “Create your own label”.
Select “text” and add in whatever you want the ribbon to say or even a graphic!
Once the text is in click “Done”.
Adjust the “Taper length” depending on how long your message is.
Scroll to the left to find “label alignment” and align your text to the right”
Once your text is in and the alignment is correct click “print”
Set your ribbon to the side and begin building your flag frame.
Attach a piece of wire around the dried painted skewer by wrapping it around the top.
Once the wire is attached, measure the length of the wire against the length of the ribbon and cute wire accordingly.
Using the glue stick apply glue to the back of the ribbon.
At the mid point on the ribbon place the skewer there and fold the ribbon in half so the wire is in in between the two halves.
Attach a painted wood bead to the top using a hot glue gun.
Place completed flag in cake!

We love using the Brother P-touch ELITE it is the perfect easy-to-use ribbon and tape printer that you can use to create any and all of the exciting crafts you have planned for this Craft Month! We can’t wait to see what you create!

The green polka-dot background is from our Lars Print Shop. Thank you @glweddingcakes for the lovely cake!

DIY Painted Blocks for Kids

Brittany

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May 18, 2020

0

Did you catch the #toddlertemptation I did with Jasper this weekend on Instastories? (You can see it saved in highlights) I set out a plate for his dinner and left the room for a bit (2 minutes max?) and asked him not to eat anything until I got back. Of course, I recorded the whole thing. Well, that little sneak totally snuck soooo many bites! He was very stealthy about it so I don’t know whether to be impressed or worried!

While I am a little heartbroken about leaving the baby stage, watching him grow is the most amazing thing ever. And truthfully, he gets more fun to play with every day!

You might remember this old post about his nursery. It’s crazy to think that was more than two years ago!! It’s pretty clear that I love to decorate and craft and change things all the time, so it should come as no surprise to you that I add and remove things from his room constantly.

One thing that I am introducing to his menagerie of toys are hand-painted blocks! This is a project that I’ve been wanting to do for awhile and I finally scheduled it to make it happen (one of the perks of crafting for a living!). In fact, for my sister’s baby shower, we left out a ton of blank wooden blocks and guests could add their own pattern to it so you get a variety of handpainted blocks from your dear friends. I’ve been wanting a set for myself ever since.

There are tons of cute and trendy wood blocks for sale right now, but I wanted ones that were more specific and personal for him. If you read my piece from March, Why I Feel Called to Craft, you’ll get why I wanted to paint my own blocks.

All of my life, I’ve watched my great grandma, grandma, and mom crafting. You’ll recall my family’s famous fridge quote that “a creative mess is better than tidy idleness.” Right now, I find myself pulled by those two opposites – do I want my home to be tidy or do I want to play and craft? Sure, painting Jasper’s blocks myself might have made a mess, but I made memories while doing it.

When I initially set about decorating his room, I stuck with moody-but-airy colors like muted blues, greens, and greys, with red providing the pop of color and energy. Remember, whimsical color schemes always need some neutral hue to ground everything! For the blocks, I decided to deviate a bit from my original color scheme and go with ~summery~ colors. Pinks and aquas and yellows were too hard to resist!

How to make your own painted blocks

I found this great blank set of blocks that wasn’t too expensive. In addition, it’s even nicely sanded and comes with a box to put them away in.

Materials:

Set of wood blocks from here
Acrylic or house paints in a variety of colors
Paintbrushes
If you’re worried about your children eating the blocks, add a child proof sealant onto the paint
Blue tape

Instructions:

Start painting some wood blocks a solid color. Or stripes, or whatever you’d like. If you want super straight lines (I wanted mine to feel more handpainted) use blue tape (and follow the instructions on the tape!) to block off your colors.
After that, let the blocks sit for the allotted time drying time.
Finally, use child-friendly sealant if you’re worried about your children eating the blocks.

Color scheme ideas for your painted blocks

Here are some ideas of color schemes we love!

Jasper’s colors

Circus colors

Spring colors

Bold colors

Quirky colors

Hopefully, Jasper will have as much fun with these blocks as I did! I want him to look back on his childhood the way I do mine; it was full of life and color and creativity and inspiration from the people I love.

That’s it! Would love to see if you make some! To be featured, tag us on instagram with #LarsMakes or #LarsKids so we can see them!

Other wood blocks we love

If you would rather purchase some beautiful wood blocks instead of painting your own, here are some of our favorites!

DIY hair pinatas

Brittany

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January 21, 2016

11

On Tuesday evening we were pleased as punch to host the release of Rubi Jones‘ book, The Art of Hair, with a braiding workshop and book signing here at the studio. We knew we needed something punchy and celebratory for the event so we decided to go all out with a brigade of hair-inspired piñatas. Along for the ride are a metallic comb, hair brush, blow dryer, shears (I was corrected that they are not scissors), and hairspray. “But, Brittany, what do I need a brigade of hair-inspired pinatas for?” Friends, the possibilities are endless (and I’m sure you can add to it):

braiding party (a la the intro of Full House)
treat yo’ self night
your salon, your friend’s salon, your wanna be salon (a la, your living room)
girl’s night out
weekend retreat
your bathroom/party room
surprise at a friend’s door for a birthday
and last but not least, Galentine’s Day party as shown by Kelly Of Studio DIY

You catch the drift.

Well, I’ve combined with Kelly of Studio DIY to complete the hair product brigade with an adorable hair spray complete with an air pouf along with a detailed step by step tutorial. Scroll down to see how hers completes the puzzle or check the full post here.

See the full troop and instructions below!

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DIY Birthday Felt Pennants

Brittany

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July 8, 2020

0

Why decorate?

Birthday decor is just too fun. And since birthdays are so rare, celebrate longer by crafting in advance! You can print off felt pennant patterns and phrases from our shop, then iron them onto felt. These make for perfect props in photo shoots, mini-celebrations, and they’re cute enough to leave up long past the birthday.

How to make DIY Birthday Pennants

Materials

Felt (8×12″. We used the beautiful colors here at Purl Soho)
Iron-on Vinyl (we used these from Cricut)
Scissors or Craft Cutting Machine (we love our Cricut Maker!)
Iron or Easy Press from Cricut
wooden dowels
Handwritten birthday phrases (you can find the ones we made here)
Pennant shape (you can find the SVG and PDF templates here)
Glue gun

Instructions

1. Connect the Cricut machine to your computer & open Design Space. Upload the pennant document and cut the triangle & rectangular shape on a piece of card-stock. (You will use these as a template to trace on the felt) OR the Cricut Machine can cut it out for you.

2. Upload the desired phrase document to your Cricut machine and MIRROR it! (Select the “Mirror” toggle while editing). **If you go to cut and the letters separate & aren’t in order as the phrase layout shows, go back to edit & highlight all the letters, right click & select “Attach,” and then they should stay in the correct layout.

3. Place the iron-on material shiny side down on your Cricut adhesive cutting mat. Cut out the phrase, checking again that it’s mirrored so it will be read the right way when it’s ironed on!

4. Pull the iron-on phrase off of the cutting mat. Then separate the two layers of the iron-on material, leaving the phrase stuck to the clear layer. (Be sure to remove the small pieces in the holes of the letters!)

5. Trace the triangle & rectangle shape from the template onto a piece of felt & cut them out.

6. Lay the iron-on phrase onto the triangle piece of the felt pennant, with the clear layer on top and the phrase touching the felt so the phrase isn’t mirrored, but is read from left to right.

7. Hold an iron set to 280 degrees F. on the pennant for 30 seconds. Wait for the iron-on to cool completely before removing the clear layer. (Check the Cricut website for information on heat & time to hold the iron or Cricut Easy Press on your fabric, depending on fabric type and iron-on type.)

8. Cut four strips of extra felt for your ties – the length will depend on how long you want the ties to be & whether you want to tie them in a bow or knot them.

9. Layer two felt tie strips, lined up on top of each other, and hot glue the very ends together. Do this to all 4 strips, creating 2 ties total.

10. Glue the two ties an inch away from the corners on the vertical edge of the triangle pennant.

11. Glue the rectangle piece of fabric on the vertical edge of the triangle pennant, covering the ties.

12. Wait for the glue to dry & tie your pennants on a dowel. Enjoy your festive birthday decor!

Go celebrate!

I’m sure I’m like you right now– you probably miss spending time with certain people right now. While I am glad to be safe, I miss people. So! I’ve decided to start birthday researching and planning for different people in my life ~in advance.~ It’s something to keep me busy, and it’s a way I can feel and share love. One easy place to start is to make a DIY felt pennant! This piece of decor is cute, classic, and personal. And you can send it to a friend in the mail if you can’t celebrate together.

How to make an ombre wedding cake pinata

Brittany

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July 24, 2012

8

How to make an ombre wedding cake pinata

I have to say that this is one of my favorite shoots I’ve done. And there’s a lot more where these come from. ooOOOoo! I did this one for the Etsy wedding blog and talked about creating an interactive wedding favor, hence the fortune cookies inside with little love fortunes. I also thought a wedding cake would be a nice alternative to the couple who doesn’t really do wedding cakes or sugar. But let’s face, the real reason to have a pinata at a wedding is…who doesn’t want to hit stuff? I’m sure it would release a lot of tension for the couple as well as the wedding planners.

Get the full instructions here.

Thank you Amanda Thomsen for taking these beautiful photos!

Birthday Printable Collection

Brittany

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February 20, 2020

2

Printable Birthday Suite

We love the colors, the sentiment and the craftiness. Here’s what we have!

Printable Birthday Invitations

You know what they say, first impressions are everything; so, let your guests know they are in for a great time with these invitations!

Printable Birthday Banner

Is a birthday party really a birthday party without a proper birthday banner?! We think not! Hang this up to set that party mood!

Birthday Crown

We heard you can only have a proper birthday if you are wearing a crown… so, we present you what might be the best birthday crown you have ever seen!

Cake Toppers

Lest the Birthday Queen or King forget how old they (yes, this has happened to me once or twice…) remind them with these cake toppers that are good for anyone ages 1-1,000!

Thank you to Dahlia Bakes for the scrumptious and beautiful cake. If you’re local in Utah Valley, we highly recommend her work!

Printable Birthday Decorations e-book

You can find all the individual components in the shop OR you can find them all in our Birthday e-book here. Here are a few must haves for your next birthday Party!

As always, we can’t wait to see how you make your birthday come to life with our printables. Tag us with #LarsMakes so we can see!

DIY Cloud Balloons

Brittany

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November 8, 2016

2

These cloud balloons make me want to sing Frank Sinatra’s “Fly me to the Moon” all day long! This is a super simple DIY but one with big impact. We first created them for our Galentine’s Hearts, Hands, Eyes, party, but thought you might like to learn how to make them too. All you need is white balloons and a glue gun and you’ll be feeling like you’re on cloud nine! You can secure these to a backdrop as we’ve done here on blue paper, or you could hang them from the ceiling. Cloud balloons would be perfect for a baby shower, a birthday party backdrop, or any occasion that you want to give a little lift.

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DIY Happy Birthday Banners

Brittany

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January 4, 2018

0

A new year means another birthday is on the horizon! I know a lot of people who get to a point in their life when they don’t want to draw any attention to their birthdays. Those people and I don’t get along very well. There is always reason to celebrate your birthday! Plus, who would pass up an opportunity to throw a party or eat cake? Not to mention the balloons! So whether you’re planning your own birthday is fast approaching or your planning a party for a friend, we have the perfect party decor for you! These DIY Happy Birthday Banners are bright and bold and say it all! Print off these quintessential birthday phrases in whatever colors you want, and you’ve got a party!

Download the letter templates to make your own DIY Happy Birthday Banners!

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Valentines Gift Box with Arlo Cookies

Brittany

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February 5, 2020

0

Printable Valentine cookie box

When Luna (creator of Arlos cookies) agreed to work with us we were ecstatic! We knew we wanted to create a box to put the cookies in but we needed them to be just as lovely as the cookies would inevitably be. With our task at hand we set out to make the most beautiful Valentine gift box worthy that would be carrying the elegant cookies.

To say we love the cookies and the box designed to carry them is an understatement! Wether you are putting Arlos Cookies in these boxes or any other Valentines treats they are bound to amplify your valentines gifting this season! Get your Valentine Cookie Box here!

Be sure to tag us with #larsloveslove so we can see how lovely your valentines gifts turn out!!!

Find Arlos Cookies

Website of Arlos Cookies
@arlocookies on Instagram