Amanda's Baby Shower Cupcakes

Recently I had the opportunity to do baby shower cupcakes for one of my coworkers and I couldn't be happier with how everything came out! Amanda requested "no pink" but she did mention that she liked sage green. I love that color too! I really like how this color palette ended up.

I wanted to use fondant decorations because I haven't done much of that lately. I had two different designs... onesies and a flower. I played with embossed fondant and non-embossed fondant. I also used a cupcake wrapper template that Judy in Her Natural Habitat came up with. Thank you Judy for the wrapper design! The most hilarious part of creating custom wrappers is that I work for Ellison, who is the parent company of Sizzix. Sizzix is a crafters dream, anywho, they make cupcake wrapper dies... if only I had planned ahead I could have used the die machines to cut out the wrappers instead of spending a good half hour cutting out wrappers. At least it was bonding time with Tyler :)

So here are the creations! First up, the fondant decorated ones...



I also wanted to do frosted decorated cupcakes for the frosting lovers in my company, which is almost everyone.

All the frosting ones disappeared first!

Thank you to my boss for taking pictures! Crossing my fingers that I get a camera from Santa this Christmas and then I'll need to learn how to use it...

Hope you enjoyed the cupcakes!

~Danielle

Hello Kitty and Shopping!

A couple days ago my friend, Celine asked if I could make some birthday cupcakes for her sister. She had two themes in mind, Hello Kitty and Shopping. Hello Kitty was pretty easy, I did a cake last year for my friend's birthday. But I was a little stumped on the shopping... finally I decided to do items that reminded me of shopping... shopping bags, a purse, heels, and a big ring (Celine's idea). Scan down to the bottom of the blog for a "how to" on fondant decorations. Here are the cupcakes in a cute pink cupcake box!


Here is a view without the box... I am sorry for the really bad photos. My iphone does a better job at taking photos...


And a close up of the shopping cupcakes


Close up of the Hello Kitty inspired cupcakes... the pink bow is my favorite!


The "How To" in fondant decorating... at least how I do it



I first like to sketch out my ideas. Next, I decide on the size of the fondant decorations. I use my round cookie cutters to help me decide on sizes. Then, I sketch the item within the boarders created by the cookie cutter. Next, I take parchment paper and trace the item again with a permanent maker. I will use these as my templates.



Next, I roll out some fondant to about a thickness of 1/8" and then I place my template on top of the fondant. I then use an exacto knife (you could use a sewing needle as well) to poke little holes along the lines of the sketch.

When you lift the parchment paper you will see little dots and you can then cut along these dots with your exacto knife. You can create a lot of different things with this technique. It may take a good amount of time, but this trick does come in handy when you don't have an edible ink printer. I have used it with lettering, logos and even the Optimus Prime cake I did in August.


Good luck with your own decorations!

Thank you for stopping by! Until next time!

~Danielle

I baked my own birthday cupcakes!

I know, I know... my friends said I shouldn't bake my own birthday cupcakes, but hey, I'll take any opportunity to decorate! I want people to look at my cupcakes and go "yea, that's Danielle." I love black and white... everything I own (journals, jewelry cases, filing folders and clothes) are black and white. So, I wanted my cupcakes to be black and white... and then I came across these really cute yellow polka dotted cupcake liners at the baking supply store... sigh. In the end, the cupcakes turned out to be yellow, white and black. :)

Enjoy! (I apologize for the bad picture quality)

I colored the fondant pale yellow and embossed the fondant with a Parisian wallpaper stamp

I colored the cream cheese frosting with yellow food coloring and used a very large piping tip to create the dollop look. I then used a gum paste flower cutter to cut out these cute flowers! Then I sprinkled yellow colored sugar and added some candy pearls.

This one is a little hard to see... I tried to get a good shot, but I couldn't. I created a happy birthday pattern by pressing a "happy birthday" stamp and a present stamp into the fondant. Then I added those cute little flowers again.

Finally, I cut out a little circle of black fondant and laid it in the middle of the cupcake. I used a piping bag and a decorative tip to create the peddles of the flower. I sprinkled some yellow colored sugar around the black circle of fondant.

Here are the four cupcakes side by side

Bright Birthday Cupcakes

I finally had the chance to really decorate cupcakes (with fondant and embossed fondant!). I was asked to make a dozen cupcakes for a birthday party. The birthday girl loves bright colors... orange, yellow, green and blue. This is what I came up with.






This one is especially for the birthday girl :)


Thank you for visiting! Until next time, happy baking!