Birthday Gift for a Friend/Tween/Teenager

DIY Birthday Cake Inspired Gift Basket

This DIY ‘birthday cake’ gift basket will definitely create a ‘wow factor’ when entering a party or surprising your child on the morning of their birthday. The best part is that this gift can be made to be as big or small, and inexpensive or costly as you make it.

Either way, it will be something that the gift recipient hasn’t seen before and loves… if you know a few of their favorite things! Therefore, this is a great idea for a birthday gift for a friend who you know everything about, a tween who loves to snack or a teenager that has it all. Plus, it would be a fun gift to send to a college student.

Would you believe that I only spent about $20 on this gift???

Materials for DIY Birthday Cake Gift Basket:

Hot glue and hot glue gun
Cellophane gift wrap
Ribbons, gift tags or cards, scissors and hole punch as needed
Favorite snacks, drinks & games in rectangular shaped boxes
Small candle or numerical candles

Be sure to look for a variety of different sized items that are rectangular shaped. Besides favorite snacks and drinks, include a few general items for tweens/teens like a board game/card game, book/ journal, or a phone case. Then, find a few things that you know the recipient will love based on their hobbies and interests. For instance, art supplies for the artist, makeup kits for the beauty queen, or a video game for the gamer.

Instructions for DIY Birthday Cake Gift Basket:

First, stack up the items from largest to smallest.
Once you have determined the order that they will go, hot glue each box in place. For example, a single line of hot glue will hold smaller items, but glue 2-3 lines near the edges of larger boxes. You can use glue dots, found here, instead of hot glue, for any items that you want to keep intact, like a box of markers. However, I found that low temperature hot glue usually just pops off of printed cardboard or plastic.
Glue a small candle on top. Or, you can add numerical candles with ribbon to the bow after it is wrapped.
Then, glue smaller candies like wrapped gumballs or gift cards around a few of the boxes as ‘icing.’

5. To wrap, unroll the cellophane paper and place boxes on top of paper to determine amount needed. Next, cut and tape cellophane by folding the excess around the boxes. Then, pull up the excess paper into a bundle on top and tie with ribbon.

6. Now, be creative and add the topper! For instance, make a pretty bow with any kind of tulle or ribbon. Then, tie on candy, gift tags or numerical candles to the bow. These sucker and cake topper sticks just slipped right into my tied bow. To tie a bow, I basically loop 2-3 feet or ribbon in a small 8 inch circle, before tying the center with a second strip of ribbon which creates the tails.

Your birthday gift for a friend or child is ready to go!!! This gift basket is amazing because it shows the person that you really know them and took time to make them something special! If you need additional ideas or tips for putting together a gift basket, read this Gift Basket Guide blog post!

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