When I was making the various toys and crafts for my book Playful: Fun Projects to Make With and For Kids, I was constantly thinking of alternative ways of using each one them. It was sometimes hard to pick just one solution for the book! So I often gave a couple of tips along the way to show you how you could vary it up. One of those tips was to use my paper puppet parade animals for birthday cake and cupcake toppers! I’ve been dying to do this for sometime and with my son’s birthday coming up and after Good Things Utah was kind enough to invite me on their show yesterday, I knew it was the perfect time to do just that!

I love the versatility of these puppets. I show them in my book as oversized animal puppets which would also be so great at a birthday party. You could put on a play or a giant puppet show or just run through the grass with these critters!

(above photo by Nicole Gerulat for my book Playful)

Or you could scale them down and use them to top off cupcakes & cakes and then pass them out as take home favors for your little guests! Just make sure to string a sheet in a hallway for quick shadow puppet play after all the cake and ice cream is eaten! Seriously SO fun. I even love how Reagan, Good Things Utah host, mentioned using these as cards too! How cute would this elephant be for the perfect birthday invitation?! Just place it in an envelope and drop it in the mail. Done!

Another thing I love about using my paper puppet templates (found in the back of my book PLAYFUL) for cake toppers is that they easily dress up any cake, homemade or store bought! This particular cake was made by my friend Lydia of Vintage Cakes by Lydia from scratch and it is DELICIOUS!!! (she makes the prettiest and yummiest cakes ever! If you have an event coming up definitely check her out. Naturally this baked beauty was quickly devoured by my little animals post shoot).

And if you’re interested in seeing me on Good Things Utah and getting more inspiration you can see the segment here on online. (I alway feel so self conscious on camera but I do love to chat about my obsessions with kiddie crafts!!)