When I finalized my wedding cakes (yes - there are three - instead of one large one) with my baker in NC we were talking about how to display them and I mentioned I wanted gold cake stands, to my disappointment she didn't have any in her collection. Instead of opting for another type of stand I decided to take on the task of finding some inexpensive cake stands to make over into delightful gold stands! Not only would they look the way I wanted, they would be one-of-a-kind!

I had no idea what I was in for....

The search began with Amazon: nothing. Either the stands were very pricey, not the style I wanted, plastic, too small and the list goes on. I moved on to Walmart, Target, and Google product search...still nothing. It turns out, cake stands are quite pricey! Since I don't plan to use these again after the wedding, I had to keep up the search. I even stopped by my local Salvation Army, nothing.

This past weekend I was in Brooklyn at my local Target and decided to wander over to Marshall's with nothing particular in mind...and I am so happy I did! It was there that I found my first Cake Stand: a design I loved and a great price! You'll see it in the picture on the left, the bottom stand with the texture: $7.99!

Feeling lucky, I decided to walk over to the Salvation army again to take a look, and voila! I found my second cake stand: $4.50!! A true lesson in perseverance.

Below you will see my journey to transforming the stands....

Any local art store should have gold spray paint, I opted for a Matte finish which I think looks a bit more elegant. 

Thoroughly clean the surface of the glass so that you don't have any dirt or particles trapped in there when you apply the spray paint. 

Make a plan before you spray! I looked over my dishes and realized that if I sprayed the top of the stand, it would cover up all the beautiful detail work on the under side, so I chose to spray the under side and not the top.

The second dish I did the same with, even on the actual "stem" part, the detailing was in the middle hollow section of the stand, so I only sprayed that part. 

See here: spraying the underside of the dish, as well as the inside of the "stem". NOT the outside of the "stem" part. You can cover that section with paper or just spray carefully. 

Spraying the underside of the second stand. 

After the dishes were dry, I flipped this one over and sprayed the outside "stem" of the stand since there was no detailing to be lost on the hollow inside of the "stem". 

Voila! Gorgeous vintage style cake stands in gold with beautiful detailing. I love that you can see the "etching" more with the gold applied than when the stand was "bare" glass. 

Can't wait to use these as the wedding! Now I just have to find one more....

xx

Thea