Foam Cupcake Craft for Preschoolers & Birthday Parties

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OK you guys, this foam cupcake craft is another one of our original crafts that we did with our boys almost 10 years ago! Don’t even ask me how I came up with this idea! As with any original idea sometimes something wild just happens! 

 

Foam Cupcake Craft

Making foam cupcakes to decorate is great for birthday party crafts, fine motor skills and sensory activities, or just passing time if you’re stuck indoors. Below you’ll see that a can of spray foam insulation is the main “ingredient” here and once you start using the can you can’t save it!

If you use the can once you either have to use it all or throw it away – so make plenty of foam cupcakes and stash them for later!

How to Make a Foam Cupcake Craft:

foam insulation cupcake craft

Foam Cupcake Materials:

cupcake liners

1 can of insulation foam (the kind you fill cracks/gaps with – found in the hardware section)

colored tissue paper

glue sticks (1 per child)


 

cupcake craft with foam insulation

We bought a can of insulation foam from the hardware section at Walmart for about $2.50. One can makes approximately 30 cupcakes.

To begin simply attach the included “nozzle” and spray the foam directly into the cupcake liners. It will look lumpy – don’t worry – it will smooth out as it dries. You do NOT want to touch this foam when it’s wet – it’s a MESS! This is definitely a craft that adults need to help with! I recommend adults creating the “cupcake” filling and then letting the kids decorate.

The insulation foam will be a sticky icky mess so you have been forewarned – do NOT touch it while it is drying!!! If you need to handle the “cupcake” at all hold it by the paper at the bottom or have your cupcakes already placed on a tray before adding the foam! Do NOT try to smooth out the lumps (see below).

cupcake craft with foam insulation

Make sure not to fill the cupcake paper too full (as we did!) because the foam will expand! We filled ours too full and it ended up inverting some of our cupcake papers! For us it was a trial and error really! But one can of insulation foam can make around 30 cupcakes even with our mistakes so don’t feel like you have to be stingy with foam.

cupcake craft with foam insulation

As you can see one can will make a LOT of cupcakes so this is an awesome and inexpensive craft for VBS, a preschool class or a birthday party! As the foam dries it will smooth out. Above you see the lumpy chunky looking cupcakes and below just about 5 minutes later it already appears to be smoothing out. So don’t worry if you think your cupcakes look terrible right away, let the foam magic do its thing and give it a little time!

cupcake craft with foam insulation

Your cupcakes will need to dry at least a few hours before using them, I highly suggest leaving them to dry overnight. They are a little stinky! Look how smooth the foam turned out!

pastel tissue paper pieces

While your cupcakes are drying take your colored tissue paper and cut into small squares or rectangles. These will be the “sprinkles” for your cupcake. Toss all of the desired colors into one large bowl. I love this because you can color coordinate a party or have multi-colored sprinkles!! You can also have multiple pots of single colored tissue paper if your child is working on recognizing colors!

boys decorating cupcake craft with foam insulation

Once you are ready to begin the craft and your cupcakes are dry hand each child a glue stick and have them smear it all over the top of their foam cupcake.

cupcake craft with foam insulation

The child will then turn their cupcake upside down and place the glued top of the cupcake directly into the bowl of “sprinkles” (tissue paper) so that the tissue paper will stick to the top of their cupcake!

cupcake craft with foam insulation

Ta-DA!! This is an incredibly simple craft to do once you have pre-made your foam cupcakes! PLUS it makes great decorations for birthday parties! Want to get really creative (and maybe a little messy?) – throw some glitter in the mix to let your cupcakes sparkle!

NOTEDo NOT make these cupcake crafts if you think your child will try to eat it!!! They are NOT meant to eat and should only be used by kids old enough to know not to take a bite out of it!

 


 

Other Original Art Craft Activities:

salt dough crazy faces art project colorful STEAM art sand activity

 

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One Comment

  1. This is great, very innovative! I want to do this to decorate the bake sale table I’m doing with a charity group for university.

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