DIY Cake Stand

This weekend, my project for the wedding was to start my cake/candy/whatever stands. These will be placed on the tables at the reception to hold candy, sweets, etc.

I've seen these stands for sale on Etsy and have also seen various tutorials on blogs. They are made with vintage plates and candlesticks. The candlesticks I will be using are brass and they MUST be hollow all the way through the center, including the stand. The stand will usually unscrew from the base of the holder. I made the mistake of buying some candlesticks that are not hollow all the way through.

I assembled my pieces for the first stand. It will be three-tiered so I have three plates. Again, the colors for the wedding are red and yellow, so those are the colors I looked for when buying the plates. I have a pair of candlesticks and for the top, I have a yellow porcelain drawer knob. Most of the dishes I have are chipped. In fact, I specifically looked for dishes that weren't in the best of condition, because I won't feel so badly when I make a hole in them.

My next step was to drill holes in the middle of all three plates. I marked the center with a sharpie and then placed a piece of masking tape over it. I could still see the mark I made through the tape.

I bought a package of various sizes of drill bits which are specifically designed for drilling glass. I had read up on the procedure for drilling glass/ceramic and had seen that you should keep adding water to the spot where you're drilling. When I did that, the masking tape came right off. So, what I finally decided to do was to start the hole without water. That gave me a little indentation to work with so that I felt the tape didn't really matter much at that point, although I think the tape is supposed to keep the plate from breaking as you drill. I didn't actually have any of the plates break, although I did have some roughness around the hole. That means some of the holes don't look very clean, but that can be covered with the candlestick or with a washer if it's too large to be covered by the candlestick.

Once I had my holes all drilled, I had to cut a piece of allthread which was going down through the plates and hollow candlesticks. It needed to be the right size to screw into the drawer pull at the top of the stand. I used a hacksaw to cut the allthread to size and then screwed on the drawer pull.

I turned the drawer pull upside down and threaded everything on from top to bottom (in an upside down position). The bottom of one of the candlesticks is the bottom of the stand. I used a bolt screwed onto the allthread under the bottom of the candlestick to keep everything in place.

And this is my finished stand: