If you’re heading for the beach this summer, or if your planning a beach theme birthday party, here’s a fun easy idea for a sand bucket cupcake wrap. I made the wrap with card stock, and the shovel handle with gum paste, but you could easily cut the shovel handle out of card stock too, and glue it to the toothpick.

Sand Bucket Cupcake Wrap Instructions:

Materials:

• Card stock in your choice of color
• Gum paste
• Food color (to color the gum paste)
• Toothpick
• Icing
• Graham crackers (one square per cupcake)
• Cupcakes made from your favorite recipe or mix

Instructions:

1. A day or two before you want to make the cupcakes, shape shovel handles out of gum paste, once the handle is shaped, insert a toothpick into the end of the handle to help support it in the cupcake (see photo). Set the handles aside to dry for several hours or a day.

2. Crush the graham crackers and set them aside. You’ll need one graham cracker square per cupcake.

3. Ice the cupcake, then sprinkle the top with the crushed graham crackers to make it look like sand, and set the cupcakes aside.

4. I used giant cupcakes to make my sand buckets. For the larger size cupcakes you’ll need a 1 3/4″ strip cut from cardstock for each cupcake for the bucket wrap. If you’re using regular cupcakes, you’ll want to make the strip about 1 1/2″ tall.

5. Wrap the strip around the cupcake and glue it in place. Hot glue works well, but if you use regular glue, paper clips can hold the wraps in place until the glue dries.

6. To cut a bucket handle measure the top of the cupcake and cut a half circle with the inside diameter the same width as your cupcake. I traced around a small sugar bowl and it was exactly the right size for a giant cupcake.

7. Cut a small slit in each side of the cupcake wrap. Insert the handle into the slits.

8. Insert the toothpick part of the bucket handles into the cupcakes and you’re finished!

You can make your sand bucket wraps and your shovel handles in any color.

Have fun!