Cake Pops

I had the day off today due to Veterans day. What to do on a day all by myself at home? Try something new! I have long been a fan of Bakerella's cake pops but haven't had an occasion yet where they were my go to. So today I decided to try my hand at cake pops. At Bakerella's website you can see some of the ridiculously cute & fabulous things she makes her pops into but since I am a beginner, I thought I would stay simple with sprinkles. I did have a couple of pops that didn't make it, but for the most part, they were a success!! Drew got to pick out the flavors so we have carrot cake, cream cheese icing & vanilla candy coating. They are pretty yummy! Since I didn't make them for a specific occasion, I'll be taking half of them to work tomorrow while Drew takes the other half to school. Wish I could share with yall!

MY BIRTHDAY!!

October 24 is the best day out of the entire year. Why, you ask? Because it's MY birthday!! I am one of those people who absolutely loves birthdays, but especially my own! I go above & beyond to make sure the people that I love have great birthdays so I get super excited when it's my turn. Luckily, this is something my husband Drew understands & does a really great job of making happen for me. This year we decided to have a party for our friends at our house. Drew usually cooks, but we had about 22 people confirmed, which meant a lot of food, & Drew outside on the grill all night. Not something I want to happen when it's my night & I want him to be with me! Selfish? No, this time it's valid. :) So, we ordered chicken/beef fajitas, rice/beans & all of the sides from Rosas's Mexican food. All we had to do was pay & pick up! Best part was, NO clean-up!

The food was great, but the best part of the entire evening was dessert. I love, love, love cake. Whether it be in cupcake form or layers, I LOVE cake. But I can't make my own birthday cake, so Drew to the rescue! He followed my mom's old from scratch strawberry cake recipe & made the best birthday cake I have ever eaten! He even made the frosting from scratch! ALL by himself. I didn't help, at all! It was super sweet of him & I bragged on him all night. Everyone was super impressed with him & loved it! That's my man!

Yea for being 26!! Thanks for the cake Drew, it was yummy!! I love you!

Action Shots

While I was decorating the buttermilk cupcakes for Katharine's shower, Drew decided he wanted to take some action shots of me doing my thing. He loves the fact that I am so obsessed with cupcaking at the moment, because that means a lot of uninterrupted TV time for him, mostly football. I have to say though, I think I'm getting the better part of this deal!!

Some of you will recognize the shirt, Sinton lady Pirate softball playoffs 2002. Makes me feel old!

All finished!! Now just 35 to go...

A Shower for Katharine- piped flower cupcakes

One of our friends is engaged to be married in December. Her sister Kristen (also our friend) & our friend Jennifer were the hostesses. They called me and ordered Baby Cakes for the desserts. We went with all pink buttermilk flower cupcakes. We again did the mix of full size & minis. They were a hit & fit in very well with the princess themed shower. The shower was BeAuTiFuL & the bride got lots of great stuff! For a detailed look of the custom made decorations click here.

Something Different

The month of October is ridiculous for my family when it comes to birthdays. We have 7 (1 on the way) birthdays, with 5 of them being in a span of 7 days! And of those 5 are my mom, my sister-in-law Teria & myself. My mom is very easy for me to buy for since we like the majority of the same things, and I can shop for her pretty well. Teria, on the other hand is harder for me. She usually wants gift cards for clothes. But, since she is 8+ months pregnant this year, clothes were not on her mind. Once again, after visiting my friend Jennifer's blog, I had an idea. I was going to try something new, to make a hand painted sign (by myself) to hang in the baby's room. I was very nervous but after some coaching from JP, I think it came out pretty awesome!!

"our little trooper" because my brother, Cody is actually a Texas State Trooper. Get it, our little trooper? I know, I am SuPeR impressed with myself!

And good news, Teria loved it!! Cody had it hung up in the baby's room the next night! Pictures of baby Cade as soon as he arrives! O, and, I might be developing a new sign making obsession!!

Bible Study Halloween cupcakes

I am in a Tuesday night Beth Moore bible study this semester. Our class is so big, we have to sign up in groups of 5 or 6 to bring desserts for the class. When it was our turn, everyone of course was expecting me to do cupcakes. But, since it was Halloween & we had a Monday holiday (Columbus day, I think!), I suggested that we do a group cupcake decorating party. I made the cupcakes Monday morning, brownie & buttermilk this time, and the girls came over in the afternoon to decorate. I looked up some easy designs for the groups through the Wilton website & Martha Stewart's since most of the girls were beginners on piping. I also pulled out all of my sprinkles, in case some felt more comfortable just flat icing & sprinkling. Our main Halloween designs were a candy corn, mummys & pumpkins. Since it was for bible study, we decided to leave out some of the other designs I would have gone with like the witch, Dracula, ghosts, or spiders. Since I get to decorate pretty regularly, I did a couple of examples & mostly sat back & watched the girls create lots of super cute cupcakes!

Did I mention we decorated almost 100 cupcakes?

Here are the girls! Kristi, Crystal, LeeAnna, Ragna

We had a really great time decorating & if left overs mean anything, the women really enjoyed them!!

Tiffany's Baby Shower- flower cupcakes

My best friend Tiffany is having another baby. She has a little boy & is now having a girl! We are soo excited for Kallie to get here! Since this will be the first girl out of 5 cousins, we decided she needed a small baby shower so that we could buy lots of pink!! We had it at my house with our closest girlfriends. Of course, I made the cupcakes. We did a mix of full size & minis, strawberry & buttermilk, as well as one flowerpot. As you can tell our theme was very girly!

(the flowers in the right corner are my anniversary roses from Drew!)

pink for strawberry, yellow for buttermilk

I love the minis, but you eat so many more without realizing it!

The shower was a hit & Tif got lots of great things! Pictures of baby Kallie to come when she arrives!

Present!

I have a friend named Jennifer, who is very crafty. She has a great blog, Paisley Pink Polka Dots, that I check regularly to see what all she's been up to. Well, I am a sign person. I LOVE to have signs with all sorts of sayings all over my house. (My husband is not as big of a fan of my obsession, but that's another story!) One day on her blog, I see this great sign that she made, Imagine. As I was decorating my kitchen at the time, inspiration struck! So, I called her & begged her to make me a sign for above a set of my kitchen cabinets. She didn't have to ask, of course it would be pink! She had it made almost the next day & it is perfect!! Don't you think?

It makes me happy every time I see it!! Thanks JP!!

Do-it-yourself Baby Cakes



Kambryn, the birthday girl!

My sister-in-law Ashley contacted Drew & I to do some Baby Cakes for our niece's Kambryn's first birthday party. She had a fun idea for the kids, creating their own Baby Cakes! Since her older sister Kynlee is 3, it was really something for her & the older kids to do during the party. I made 2 dozen strawberry cupcakes, not iced. Then we made butter cream icing & bought tons of different kinds of toppings that the kids would like. We brought mini chocolate chips, colored sugar, crushed up candy bars & lots & lots of sprinkles! We did it outside on the deck with a sheet under us. I gave the kids a quick example & then they got to it! It ended up being a total hit at the party & all the kids had tons of fun making their own cupcakes. If fact, many of the kids made lots of their own cupcakes! Here are a few pictures from the party that I was able to get from my mother-in-law.

We had soo much fun!! And what a fun party idea for little ones!

Our first offical paid order!! - sunflower cupcakes & football cookies

I was contacted by a friend from work who needed some cupcakes made for some very special people, her grand kids! She needed 9 for a girl, age around 13, & 9 for a boy, age around 8. She requested sunflowers for her granddaughter. Sunflowers hold a special place in my heart because of my Grandfather so I absolutely loved making these & think they are pretty awesome!



Her grandson is an avid Texas (ugh I'm an Aggie!) football fan, and has been having some health issues so we wanted to do something really special for him. We decided that we would mix cupcakes with my super yummy sugar cookies & make him football cupcakes. I wasn't able to construct the cupcakes because they had a two hour drive so I made the pieces & she put them together when she got there. We did cookies in the shapes of footballs and helmets and then grass cupcakes. The idea was to stand the cookie upright in the cupcake. She said there amazing when they came together.

I am still waiting for the final product pictures of the cupcakes with the kids. I'll share them when I get them! I definitely had a VERY satisfied customer! YEA :)

A baby shower for Sarah & Jack- cupcake flower pot

I got my first call to do cupcakes for an event!! A baby shower! Okay, so it was my mom calling & I was also one of the hostesses, but the fact that I was the go-to dessert made me happy!! My mother, sister-in-law & I were in charge of the baby shower for Sarah & Jack Stephenson. It was being held in Sinton on a Saturday so I couldn't do any of the before work at home. We took Baby Cakes on the road. Teria, my sister-in-law, helped with the chopping/mixing, my two year old niece Jolie did the egg cracking (on me, but that's another story) & I did all the fast & furious baking/icing for our cupcake creations. We were making one batch of strawberry cupcakes, one batch of brownie cupcakes & two batches of butter cream icing. And since it is us, we didn't start all of this until 10:30pm Friday night! Needless to say, it was a long night! But we got them done & we think they turned out pretty fabulous! We made two flowerpots for the main tables & then arranged the other full-size & mini cupcakes on pretty glass trays.

Do you see the fabulous bows? Those are actually stretchy head bands for baby girls with clip on bows to make it easy for them to be changed out. The bows were custom made for me by the awesome Sandra Knox in Sinton. Her bows are amazing & she will customize them to match any outfit!

 Yum! They were a huge hit! I couldn't be more excited!

My new favorite thing- flower pot cupcakes!

Cupcake flowerpots!! I saw these on an episode of DC Cupcakes & decided after just learning how to do flowers that I would have to make them! I googled them to find out what exactly they were using as "stems". Here's what I did: Take a regular flower pot that you can buy anywhere & get a Styrofoam ball that fits half way down inside the pot. Get small sized dowel rods for the "stems". Construct it all the way you think you want it before trying it with already iced cupcakes. The hardest thing was figuring out the spacing to try & make them look more natural instead of perfectly lined up. Cut the dowel rods down until they are a couple of inches long & stick them in the Styrofoam where only the length that will go inside the cupcake is showing. After that glue something as a filler in between where the cupcakes will go. I used green tissue paper. When you have your pot ready, add the flowers! Really pretty simple, just takes a little work to get it all set up. They turned out great & can be used as a really awesome center piece!

Flower cupcakes

I wanted to practice my piping skills so I decided to start with flowers. I picked three different types from my books & got started with chocolate cupcakes, yellow icing & chocolate sprinkles. My piping improved with every flower! I'm pretty proud of the way my first attempts turned out!

The sunflowers may be my favorite!! More flowers to come soon!