by Hannah Walton aka The Cheapskate Mom

If you are celebrating someone's birthday at work , you are probably trying to figure out an easy , cheap and special way to acknowledge your coworker.

I've been there – these days , with everyone's budget being pretty much no frills, it's hard to come up with a fun and memorable way to say "We Care". A couple of years ago back at the restaurant – everyone's favorite employee Vinnie was having a birthday. It was right after Christmas and none of us had any MONEY at all – our restaurant got really slow after the holidays.

I put on my cheapskate thinking hat (yep, I'm a dork) and thought – I can't ask folks to chip in more than a dollar or so! None of us can afford it….

What can I do? That's when I came up with the incredible GAS STATION BIRTHDAY CAKE . I'm such a dork that I consider the gas station work birthday cake to be one of my best accomplishments to date ! I spread the word for a week prior -  bring in Little Debbie and other gas station snacks – we are making Vinnie a cake of epic proportions. Slowly, but surely, the wrapped cupcakes, cherry pies and zebra snacks started to pour in. Yay!

Using 4 different shaped cardboard circles I made my cutting out from boxes and taping together paper cups as a support beam, my friend Britt assembled the structure of the gas station birthday cake for Vinnie. Then we all had fun arranging our treasure box full of gas station snacks in an …. ahem…. artful manner. To top it all of, we threw some candles and whipped cream on top. It was totally, totally awesome and the best birthday at work I've ever heard of. Vinnie actually cried (I think).

Such a happy time

This awesome "cake " for Vinnie was so simple and so much fun to build! Here's a funny cake diagram showing the basic structure….

Be Sure to Check Out Cupcake Fondue !
 

CONVERSATION STARTER:
What's the craziest or cheapest cake you've ever made / seen ? One time I tried a cake made out of garbanzo beans made by an aging hippie and it was awesome