DIY Cupcake Stand For Less Than $7

My son's second birthday is coming up and we are planning on really doing it up this year in a halloween theme. I am really excited for it. I have been pinning stuff all over pinterest  for everything I want to do :) I pinned a few tutorials for making cupcake stands out of burner covers from the dollar store. I thought "I can do that!" So I did.

I was not able to find the burner covers at my local dollar tree and didn't want to make the trip to Walmart to buy them. Luckily I did manage to find these cute "silver" trays with some interesting etching on them that would work.

I started with three of the silver trays, 2 glass candleholders and a $0.97 can of paint from walmart (I guess I could have gotten the burner covers couldn't I?) Oh well. Grand total: $6.38 (after tax) I decided to paint the trays black, although they could look ok with their 'natural' silver look to them, I just felt like black was more suited to a halloween birthday. I toyed with the idea of doing each in a different fun color but for the sake of cohesiveness, didn't.

First I painted the trays black. One coat at a time. This is the three of them after their first coat.

Now, if you have a table that you LIKE, I suggest newspaper to protect your cherished table. But if you are like me and just so happen to possess a table that is weather beaten and ready for a visit to the dump, paint away :)

Once all the paint dried, I brought out my trusty hot glue gun. I figured I would try to use this to fasten it all together first. I may be trying again with something else. Hot gluing glass to smooth metal is not secure enough for my taste but should work for his birthday at the very least. I did a band of glue around the base of the glass, then did another around the outside of the glass once it was all fastened. 

The top is a little off from the other two layers so I will fix that but it is not bad for my first attempt. RIGHT?! I figure no one is really going to be paying too close of attention to my cupcake stand, hopefully the cupcakes are good enough no one notices how messy the construction actually is :) 

All in all, for $6.38, it doesn't look terrible, considering I have seen cupcake stands for $30 or more. I'm too cheap for that.