TREASURE CHEST with cake

Another Pirate themed project for you. I wanted to create a treasure chest that sat over the birthday cake. I had to be really creative with this idea because 1) I didn't want to spend too much money, and 2) I didn't want to light anything (or anyone) on fire.

I started with a generic Styrofoam chest just like you see above. I cut about 2-3 inches off the bottom of the chest so there was a huge opening at the bottom. The idea behind this was so the treasure chest could just be lifted straight off the cake instead of trying to lift the cake out of the chest.

Next I covered the entire chest in contact paper that had a wood grain print (see above). This was the most tedious part of the entire project because I had to make small incisions around the intricate corners so that the contact paper kept the treasure chest form. Some of the seams were a little sloppy but these will be covered up by aluminum foil so it wasn't a big concern.



Chest covered in contact paper with bottom cut out



You'll notice in the picture above I also added handles to the chest. These were purely for show and had no utility. The handles were created from wire and aluminum foil. Probably another piece of the project I could have spent more time on.

After covering everything in contact paper I used aluminum foil to look like metal brackets that were holding the chest together. I spray painted the foil with gold spray paint (I think regular silver would look good too), and then cut strips about 1-2 wide. These were then placed along the edge of the chest and secured with glue. As I mentioned before the foil does a nice job of hiding the seams of the contact paper.

Chest with handles and "metal brackets" created by foil

Next I used the thumb tacks to look like rivets along the foil. I'm not sure how many I used but I was pretty generous with my placement of the tacks. You'll notice above that I was pretty successful getting the overall look.

After the tacks came the sticks. I used regular skewers to secure the top of the chest in an open position. I thought about keeping the lid closed but it needed to be open so the candles didn't light the lid on fire. I simply cut the sticks in half, made aligned holes in both the chest and the lid, and then carefully married the two together. Keep in mind that you're working with Styrofoam and it is fragile! This part takes a little more finesse.

Viola! You have a treasure chest! The only thing left to do is to bake your cake and place the chest around it. You'll need to measure the bottom of your chest so you know how big your cake can be but that's the easy part ;)  I took a 9x13 sheet cake, cut in half, and stacked one layer on top of the other. After frosting I put gold coins and candles on the cake to really make it look like the chest was filled with gold. Here is the final product:



Aerial view of the chest filled with cake and gold coins