As soon as I came up with the concept of the A is for Addalyn birthday brunch, I knew I wanted to use alphabet blocks in the design.  Pretty quickly, I came up with the idea of using stacked alphabet blocks as risers for a DIY tiered cake stand.

I already had the blocks (rescued from the bag of stuff heading off to Goodwill...whenever I get around to taking it).  I just needed disks in graduated sizes.  I didn't feel like cutting my own wooden disks, but I thought that perhaps I might be able to find some at my local Lowe's home improvement store.

Turns out I was wrong.  While they did have some nice round wooden disks pre-cut, they started at 24" in diameter and went up from there.  Whoops.  I started wandering aimlessly around the store, looking for inspiration.

And I found it--the perfect item for this craft.  Grinder disks!  

They come in a perfect range of sizes.  They're inexpensive (just a few dollars each).  They're incredibly sturdy.  And there's already a hole drilled in the dead center.  Score!  

The first step in the transformation was a good coating of spray paint (also from Lowe's).

I liked the way it looked just painted, but I had some lovely scrapbook paper that I wanted to use somewhere in the design, so I decided to cover the tops with paper for this party.  It was a simple matter to trace the circle, cut it out, and tack it on with a bit of hot glue (easy to remove later, for the next party).

I have plans for these disks later, so I just used my hot glue gun to stack and attach the blocks and the disks.  If I had wanted this to be a permanent piece, I would have drilled a hole through all the blocks, and glued a dowel through the center of the whole thing.  But I have plans to renovate and reuse these items in an entirely new way, so hot glue was the perfect solution.  

A little lace around the edges added the perfect feminine finishing touch.

Fast, easy, inexpensive, and perfect for the party.  What could be better?