Every time I am at a craft store, I can’t help but search for inexpensive crafting supplies to turn into fun blog projects. The other day I stopped into Michaels to pick up some supplies for my 4th of July pinatas. While I was there I found some awesome 3D bamboo and cork letters. Despite my kids running around the store like wild animals after a day at the splash pad, I managed to quickly snag a couple boxes and hit the checkout with my supplies and a few extras. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to make with them, but I knew that they were begging for a half painted raw wood look. After playing around brainstorming while painting a few (if you follow me on Instagram (@kailochic) you may have seen some of the letters I painted), I thought of the first thing that I wanted to make. And some colorblocked “Happy Birthday” cupcake picks it was.

To make my cupcake picks I ended up needing two boxes of letters as each box had one of each consonant and two of each vowels. They were on sale for 50% off, so I got both packs for $5 and I had all the other supplies on hand. The first thing I did was pull out the paint colors that I wanted to use. I was going for a bright neon party look, so I used the following Martha Stewart Acrylic Paint colors:

• Sweet Potato (orange)
• Raspberry Ice Cream (pink)
• Granny Smith (neon green)
• Mardis Gras Beads (purple)
• Diving Board (blue)

After choosing my paint, I used some leftover thin sticky floral tape that I had (but painters tape works too) to tape off the letters that spelled “Happy Birthday” in various positions.

Then I used my paintbrush to color one side of each of the letters to create my colorblock effect.

I let them dry, then removed the tape and used my glue gun to glue toothpicks to the backs of the letters.

These fun picks would look great on top of a cake or on cupcakes and I did. And since I am in the patriotic 4th of July mindset, you could even spell out “Happy Fourth of July” or “Fireworks” and coloblock them red, white, and blue. The colors and words are really endless. How about the birthday kids name in the party colors? Really any combo would be fun.