DIY Tree Trunk Cupcake Stand

This is a story about how a girl with inspiration and a hard-working fiancé met the fate of downed trees. 

One day, as I was building my ever-loved wedding Pinterest board, I ran across this:

Via

Yep--from an Etsy shop. It was already sold, so I have no idea how much she sold it for, but I do know that shipping alone was $40. I showed Cowboy while mentioning it in passing and then left it to be, thinking it would be so incredibly hard to find one downed tree to cut in to, let alone four trees of differing diameters.

But, little did I know that a storm in Overland Park a couple of months later would down massive trees, and then a local park would open its doors to let people bring their branches and tree trunks for the city to dispose of it. Our friends (Krissy & Alex) live just a couple of blocks away from this park, so when we heard what was going on, we all walked over there. 

[Ah, when I had a tan and thought that was white.]

While looking for tree trunks, we found these awesome branches to use as the center pieces. And they were covered in moss. WHAT LUCK!

After scoping out the goods, we hid our finds amidst the piles (like other people were going to come steal our branches and trunks...haha! Do you see that pile behind us girls? That wasn't even half of it!) and ran a quick errand to Lauren & Tyler's house, where they just happened to have Tyler's dad's borrowed chain saw. Seriously...fate. 

So, my hunk of a guy went to work chain-sawing...because he loves me, after all.

 And slowly, but surely, we started to collect our pieces...

 

The next steps were my job...these guys had to be sanded completely smooth (and hopefully level) and then I gave them a coat of polycrylic.

Cowboy even carved our initials and the date into the bottom. :)

We cut our center pieces, and then those also got a coat of polycrylic. (Check out that moss! I died!)

We used a 3/8-inch dowel rod to connect all of the pieces, drilling pilot holes into each piece and then connecting them. We didn't glue anything, so it can be taken apart for easier storage.

Here's how it turned out on wedding day (photos here on out courtesy of Jackie Cooper Photo)

 Here's a great picture showing the size and scale of the stand put together (and me laughing at my new brother-in-law's best man speech).

It turned out perfectly and even better than I expected. Not only did it look incredible amidst everything else, but it had such fun and special memories attached to it. 

Have you guys ever been inspired by something and pushed it off, thinking it impossible--or at least unlikely, only to have things fall into place for you?