If I ever see another cupcake again . . .

it will be too soon!!!!

Our adoption agency was having a Birthmother's Picnic. It's a really sweet idea, adoptive parents and children celebrate their birthmothers. It's not just for families with open adoptions, you can go just to honor your birthmother where ever she may be. Even families with children adopted from far away countries come to pay tribute.

How could we say resist making cupcakes for such an amazing cause?
We ended up making just over 250 cupcakes for the day. Half chocolate and half vanilla, all with a vanilla buttercream icing!

It was a really nice day . . . they cupcakes were a hit and we both collapsed on the couch after, exhausted and thoroughly sickened by smell of cupcakes.

Here's a couple pictures I snapped while in the midst of our cupcake storm.
Before: 

After: 

 Each cupcake had it's own fondant topper. The cupcakes with yellow icing had small white flowers and the cupcakes with white icing had small yellow flowers on top! 

 Thank goodness I married a man, who can saddled up with some oven mits and help me bake! I'm not sure I could have pulled this one off by myself.

Have a great weekend!!!!

We threw a Baby Shower!

This weekend I got to co-host a baby shower for two of our dearest friends!!! The house was PACKED full of people, and the guests of honor were thrilled.
It was a Jack and Jill shower, meaning both men and women were invited, and it turned into a party but with lots of presents for the Mom and Dad to be!

Like I said, we were co-hosts with our friend Rachel. Together we tackled the decorations and food!

I thought that a diaper cake would be fun, new mom's can always use diapers, right?
Lee and I tackled the diaper cake making on Thursday night, we rolled over 150 diapers . . . Lee said it was the most ridiculous thing he's ever helped me do, but that it turned out super cool! haha

The cake was topped off with a sock monkey!

We also added some Pom Poms to the pendant above the table.

Next, since it was an Owl Theme, I tackled some owl cupcakes.

Using Oreos for eyes worked out great!

 We did both blue and green cupcake icing . . .

and just because you can't have enough cupcakes I made some white ones as well.

Rachel thought of a candy table, she had me at Candy!

Lastly a little banner . . .

I think our guests of honor had a good time . . . and we got a great sneak peek of some seriously adorable baby goods!
So a big congratulations to Matt and Sara, we love you guys!!

Pop back tomorrow for another peek into our future babies room . . . we'll be "rocking" our latest thrift store find! ;)

Tester Batch!

We have some dear friends who are expecting twins some time in the near future. I was asked to make the cupcakes for their baby shower and jumped at the chance. I have a bit of a passion for cupcakes and while I enjoy making fancy cupcakes, I love a chance to make fun ones for kids . . . like our owl cupcakes from last year.
Since they are expecting twins, it's a Thing 1 and Thing 2 theme, and although it's not until the middle of March . . . I wanted to make sure I had a good plan for the cupcakes.

 Here's what resulted from my tester batch:

We used a grass tip, it makes great "grass" (obviously) but it also makes great "fur".

I'm thinking for the final touch I'll add some blue cotton candy to the tops of the cupcakes but this was a good test run.

Cupcake How To:

I receive a lot of emails about cupcakes! I've made thousands of cupcakes in my life time. If it's a holiday, or a birthday, or a wedding I've made cupcakes for all of them.

I wish I had some secret special trick I could let you in on but the way I ice them is fairly simple. My only piece of advice would be to use the LARGE star tip, not the small one. Then it's just a simple swirl:

Like I said nothing too spectacular or earth shattering! But I'm going to let you in on my one and only little cupcake secret . . . to make fancy fondant toppers use a silicone fondant mold!!! You can find the fondant molds on Etsy in every shape and almost any design you can think of. Personally I like the flower molds. Here's how they work: 

1) grab a small piece of fondant. 

2) Push fondant into mold and remove excess. 

3) Flex mold open.

4) Gently pull our fondant flower. 

You can get great detail using a mold! Detail that you could never get doing it by hand. 

The molds with cost you around $5 each, more for larger ones, less for smaller ones. I think that for $5 they are definitely worth it, they make your cupcakes look like they were professionally made, and everyone will be amazed that you made them by hand ;). wink wink

So that's my secret . . . I hope you find it useful!!!

Owl Cupcakes!

Recently I had the chance to make some cupcakes for a very special little girls first birthday. My cousin's daughter had an owl themed 1st Birthday Party.
Every owl party needs some owl cupcakes! Honestly I was surprised at just how CUTE they turned out!

They were super simple to make, we used Oreo cookies and M&M's. The only part that was kind of a pain was pulling the Oreo's apart.

About half the Oreo's broke, some of them when I pulled them apart and some when I tried to smooth out the cream in the middle.

Some Buttercream icing died PINK, Brown M&M for the pupils and Yellow M&M's for the nose!

Hooooooo Thinks they're cute?? hehe