How to Make a 3-Tier Dessert Stand with Dishes You Already Own

One thing you may not know about me, is I LOVE to throw parties. I may be a little bit the introvert, but organizing parties is actually fun to me. For my son’s first birthday, we had a barbecue party at the local playground. It was a nice location, but when doing an outdoor party, some things like cutting cake and eating with a knife and fork gets tricky. So I decided to make cupcakes for the guests.

While I was making the cupcakes I realized I had no way to display them. I don’t actually own a cupcake tray, and to be honest, I’m not really interested in having something like that taking up space in my apartment. I bought one of those cardboard ones from the party supply store, and dude, it looked so cheap. No matter what I did to dress it up, it just looked sad. It was the night before the party and I looked up DIY cupcake stands on the internet and all of them required glue and probably buying more plates, both of which I had no time for.

This is probably one of the oldest tricks in the book, but to me, I just decided to see if it were possible to build one with serving platters and coffee mugs. Having already three different size serving platters, and a four coffee mugs I put a dessert stand together:

Place two coffee mugs on the largest platter. Here the handles are touching to create some kind of “ornamental” pattern.

Then, place the medium size platter on top of the two mugs.

Place two more mugs on the medium platter. I pushed the top two mugs closer together to make the stand more stable.

Finally, place the smallest platter on the top, and your done!

This particular stand could fit 24-36 cupcakes or donuts. It was sturdy enough to be up all day at the barbecue without incident. Once the party was over, I just threw everything in the dishwasher and called it a day!

Don’t have three platters? How about two plates and a glass?

Just make sure the base of the glass is wide enough to stabilize the second tier. And of course, don’t put anything like hot liquids or heavy food on the top. If you want to add a little bit of stability, layer a coaster on top of the glass to keep the top tier from sliding.