Wedding Cake Pops

I am EXTREMELY proud of these cake pops! The girls in my family hosted the Sinton wedding shower for Drew's little sister on Saturday. I saw these on Bakerella and knew they would be perfect for the shower. I couldn't find the exact same size cookie cutters as Bakerella, so my tiers are a little bit larger. And let me tell you, they were a lot of work! But very worth it, when the finished product looks like this!!

You start out by making regular cake pops. When it's time to shape them, you mold each ball into one of your circular cookie cutters to create a tier. Then re-freeze. When you pull them out you have to use melted candy coating to "glue" together the two tiers before dipping.

After the tiers are together, you stick in your pop stick & dip into the white candy coating. You add the heart sprinkle on top next, while the candy is still wet.

After they are completely dried you can decorate however you wish. I piped a line between the two tiers & added white pearls. To complete the look I sprayed them with a pearlized edible spray, which made them look very finished. We displayed them in a crystal vase filled with sugar. The packed sugar was tight enough to get all the cake pops to stand up! It was very pretty!

I also made red velvet & fresh strawberry mini cupcakes that we iced with blue & green. (Lauren's colors are peacock) Mom really helped me here while I was dipping!

My 2 year old niece Jolie came to the shower & wanted a cake pop immediately! We didn't want her getting into the wedding ones before the guests did, so Aunt Kelly had made special Jolie cupcake pops.

I took lots of picutres of Jolie enjoying her pop. She was just soo cute & seemed to be really enjoying it! She wanted PINK!

She was a little confused about the whole hard shell for a little bit & did lots of licking her cake pop.

But as you can tell, she's related to us & figured out how to get to the good stuff pretty quick! She really liked them!

Here's Jolie with her 2nd cupcake pop & even sharing with her friend Piper. They were super adorable!

The cake pops were all a hit! Everyone loved them, which made all the hard work worth it! But it will be a while before I make the wedding cake pops again...

Maddy Madness- ladybug cupcakes & cake pops

That was the theme for 2 year old Maddy's birthday party this weekend. I work with her grandmother Donna who asked me to make the cupcakes for Maddy's big day. Maddy loves two things, ladybugs & the color pink. So what did we do? Combine the two of course! I made all strawberry cupcakes, so that even the actual cake was pink, 20 full size & 20 minis. I made an extra-large cupcake just for the birthday girl that I cut & shaped to create a ladybug! I also made 6 ladybug cake pops that turned out SUPER cute! Thank you Donna for bringing in pictures of the birthday girl with her cake!

Here's a pic of how they laid them out to serve at the party. Love those glass trays! The pink block for the pops is something I whipped up last minute for them to use.

Here are more pictures of everything I made that I took the night before at my house.

I think these cake pops are soo cute!! I was waiting for them to start talking to me or start buzzing!

Maddy's lady bug with pink butter cream icing. The head, white eyes & spots are fondant while the antennae & black eyes were done with candy melts

The top of the cupcake was cut off & cut in two to make wings.

Here's how I laid them out at my house. Looks like the ladybug is surrounded by all the pink flowers!

I just LOVE all the pink!!

Maddy & her family loved all the cupcakes & the party was super successful! Thanks for letting me join in on Maddy's big day!



A birthday order- strawberry cake pops

 I received an order from a girl at work named Arely who wanted something special for her little sister's 18th birthday. I brought my book up & let her see all the different things I (hopefully) could do. After some major indecision, she decided on half strawberries & half cupcake cake pops. She also wanted the cake inside the pop to be strawberry with cream cheese icing, my favorite! Luckily, Drew had poker night, so I had lots of time to get them perfect! I wrapped them individually & tied them off with some green and white tulle. I was trying to figure out how she could display them, & I thought of all the extra 2x4s I have around the house from various other projects. I decided to stick two together & drill some homes to make a pop holder. I was super excited about how it turned out! I told Lee what I was making & told her it was on the house, if she brought it back. The plan was to just keep replacing the front plate with names/occasions, or whatever else I wanted the pop holder to say! The holder is 12 inches long & holds up to 12 cake pops at a time. Here are more pictures of her order:

Drew was there long enough to make sure I shaped my strawberries correctly. He was not very impressed with my first attempts!

The green tops are candy melts that I piped on to wax paper, froze & then peeled off & "glued" with more candy coating. The stems are cut sour straws.

I'm getting better with the cupcake pops every time!

Very colorful :)

Another picture of the holder. And the paper towel is under it because I am extremely impatient & the pink paint wasn't completely dry yet. I didn't want anymore pink paint on anything!

She loved her order! On Monday when she was supposed to come back with the holder, she instead brought me money because her sister was unwilling to give the holder back! Not sure what she plans on doing with the 2x4 with holes drilled into it for pops, but who knows. As long as the birthday girl is happy.

Now I just have to make another one for myself!

Valentine's - Part 2, cake pops

The girls at work wanted to know what I was making THEM for Valentine's Day. At first my answer was nothing, but then I decided to try out a new way to shape cake pops. I decided to do some more of the cupcake cake pops, because they are soo cute, but then I also wanted to do some hearts. I first rolled my cake balls, let them chill, then when I took them out, I used a cookie cutter to shape them. The hearts were a little bit of a learning curve, because I had packed them a little thin & then they weren't strong enough to stay on the sticks. Needless to say, I had a couple of them not make it! O well, more for Drew! Here are my Valentine Cake pops that Drew & I divided up & took to work.

  I love the way these cupcake pops turned out! Drew & I like the blue topped ones best.

Here are my Valentine's Day hearts!

 Look yummy right? They were strawberry & cream cheese filled w/ vanilla candy coating. I wrapped them in treat bags & tied them off with pink tulle, but apparently I didn't take a picture of that!

Valentine's Day - Part 1, lingerie & heart cookies :)

 What to do with a sick husband in bed & a Saturday night all to myself? Try something new!! I've been making roll-out sugar cookies all my life & use a simple recipe of powdered sugar & water for icing. They are super yummy, everyone loves them. Problem is, it's not an icing you can pipe with. My friend Jennifer had sent me this link for hearts & lingerie sugar cookies from the blog How Does She that week, so I knew exactly what I was making that night! I decided to try a new kind of icing that is perfect for piping, royal icing. The recipe for royal icing that I tried is one the How Does She blog linked from the blog Sweetopia.  It took me a little while to get the consistency right (& I'm still not convinced it was right) but I got it where I could start piping. Yes, I'm impatient, but I really loved the way these heart cookie pops turned out!

To get the chasing hearts, you draw small dots around your heart, then drag a toothpick through them to connect the dots. The drag is what then becomes the heart. If you go the the link, she does a step by step tutorial for how to create your own! Way easier then they look! So pretty!

Next come the slightly scandalous but totally fabulous lingerie cookies!! I mean, it is fixing to be Valentine's Day!! These were done by first laying out the heart "lace" then piping & flooding the royal icing & lastly covering the icing in solid sprinkles. They were a little tedious but so worth it!! 

These two are my favorites!

 Surprisingly, I know!!

Here are 7 best pairs :)

Even Drew perked up long enough to admire my handy work!

& you see the top right hand pair in white that are not in the right order? I'm pretty sure that was Drew.

I'm not done with Valentine's yet, I love anything that is all pink & hearts!

Lauren's lingerie shower

Lauren, the bride

Drew's little sister is getting married in May to a friend of mine that I have known, gone to school, & church with my whole life. Small world huh? As one of Lauren's bridesmaids, we gave her a lingerie shower in January to help kick start her wedding events. Because of my new found crafting abilities, I was put in charge of the decorations. It was at her mom's house, so that meant I definitely knew the location & what would or would not work. Here are pictures of most of the things I made. As you can tell, her shower colors were pink and black.

 I decided to decorate using lots of pictures. The center picture is Lauren & Stanley Joe, the bride & groom, surrounded by pictures of Lauren with each of her bridesmaids.

 I saw this cabinet door frame & decided that I would re-create it. I took an old cabinet door, sanded, painted & glazed it to make it look like this. I also drilled holes for the ribbon & glued the picture on a foam board to give it depth.

 I got the idea of for the photo blocks from the blog Brown Paper Packages. Cousin Kaitlyn helped me finish these.

 I think they gave the shower a personal touch!

 I made these lingerie clotheslines out of painted & glittered Terra cotta flower pots, tulle & cut-outs I made with my cricut.

 This picture frame turned memo/picture holder is one of my favorite things! I made one of them for myself when I first saw them here on the blog Tatertots & Jello. Drew & I use ours as a Love note board to each other. Cheesy, yes I know, but it makes me very happy!

Lauren loved the decorations & ended up getting some really good stuff! We had a really fun girls night & all the hostesses got to take home their photo blocks of them & the bride!

Cupcake surprise for Ms. Brown

One of the girls who was in Drew's teaching quad last year recently got married. Since Ms. Brown was getting married on a cruise ship to some exotic location, one of the other teachers, Mrs. Dunlap, ordered some mini cupcakes for Ms. Brown & her class to celebrate. Mrs. Dunlap ordered 48 mini vanilla cupcakes, iced in pink with pink sprinkles. Ms. Brown's favorite color is pink! (perfect for me, right?) Drew had the delivery job this time, since all he had to do was drive them to school. We had one mini cupcake death on the way to the car, but that's why I always make extras! Drew said the kids loved them so much that poor Ms. Brown didn't even get one! O well, guess that's being a great teacher & showing them how to share! Anyway, so here are the pink mini cupcakes for the bride. And since the blog is late & the wedding has already happened, Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Samuels!