A wedding shower

Stacy, who contacted me about Amanda's baby shower cupcakes, had me create some cupcakes for her soon to be sister-in-law's wedding shower. The wedding colors are red, black & white, so we did red & white flowers in black liners. I could not find black mini liners anywhere in College Station, so the minis had to be lined in white.

She needed three dozen full size & two dozen minis.
Her flavor choices were half buttermilk & half marble (a mix of chocolate & vanilla). I was excited she chose the marble because it was a flavor I hadn't tried yet. They were really yummy!

I was skeptical on the colors, because red is one of the harder colors to get right, but I think they ended up very pretty!

Okay, one more :)

I love the piped flowers, one of my all time favorite designs!

Happy Birthday Jolie!

My amazing little niece Jolie's 3rd birthday party was June 4. My brother called me & asked if I could do the cupcakes. Of course I can!! Anything for Jolie :). After much debate between fairies, pirates & who knows what else, Jolie decided she wanted a Tangled themed birthday party. Having never seen it, all I knew was that it was Disney's newest version of Rapunzel. I definitely had to do my research to get it right!

Cody (my brother) wanted to make sure we had a tower, so that's where I started my search. Luckily, anything can be googled these days, and I found one that I could make that was totally edible.

The majority of the tower is made from pecan spin rolls (love those nasty things btw!) with icing vines & flowers piped around. Add a large size cupcake & an upside down dipped waffle cone, & you have Rapunzel's tower!

I made lots of piped flowers to go with the tower to make it a whole scene. I went with purple, pink & yellow flowers because those are the majority colors you see in the movie. -I know this because the entire time I was icing the cupcakes at mom's, I was watching the movie. Super cute!! I love Disney!

Here is my entire creation. Good news- Jolie LOVED her Tangled cupcakes!

This is my brother Cody, sister-in-law Teria, and their daughter Jolie, the birthday girl!

I mean seriously, look how excited she is?! This is the first year she really knew what her birthday was all about, & it was soo much fun to watch!

 That's Jolie's little brother Cade behind her with the spoon. He is 7 months old & super adorable!

 She did very well blowing out her candles! I don't know if you can tell, but the flames are colored!

Jolie's personal cupcake is the one in the middle, that is slightly larger than all the rest.

I really wanted a picture of me & the birthday girl, but she was way more into the cupcake her parents were finally letting her eat!

LOVE this!

This is what was left of Jolie's cupcake. We asked Jolie-"where'd all your icing go?", to which came the reply "in my tummy!"

I got her to try on one of her birthday shirts at the end of the party to make sure they all fit!

 "STINK!"

So, the birthday party was a super success! It was hands down the most fun & excited I have been to make cupcakes! Like I said, anything for Jolie!

Can't wait til Cade turns 1. I'm sure Cody will have something super boy up his sleeve. Better start working on my camo....

Presents for Jolie

I LOVE to sew lately, especially for my favorite people, one of them being my niece Jolie! That amazing little girl turned 3 on May 29 so I tried to come up with some really fun things for her! I started with a shirt with her name on it. Because let's face it, she's not going to find anything premade with her name on it!

I really love the way this turned out! Super simple, but very cute :)

I also really love this flower!! I have made them before to stick on a couple of crafts, so I thought it would be a great way to dot her J.

Next, I bought some cute little shorts at Walmart & added a ruffle to the bottom to match the shirt.

I don't have a ruffler foot for my sewing machine so I had to do it a different way. I turned up the tension to high & the stitch length to the longest. You just sew straight down, & it ruffles itself!! It took some practice, but once I got the kinks it out, it was easy!

This was my second shirt. A cupcake! I know, no surprise!! I think it is soo cute! Aunt Kelly might have to make herself a matching one :)

The top of the cupcake is one fabric, the bottom is two, a green underneath the pink. I did a straight stitch around it & added buttons as sprinkles !

And more ruffles, this time on the sleeves! It's like once I started ruffling, I didn't want to stop :)

This was the last shirt I decided to do for the birthday girl because she's turning 3! (obviously)

I LOVE this!! This is the back of the 3 shirt. Stink is Jolie's nickname from Uncle Drew. She laughs & laughs every time he calls her that. I was in the process of making Drew a shirt that says Double Stink but I got the wrong size, so it didn't get finished in time for the party :(

My last present idea, was total last minute! I saw the towel monogramming on a blog I was surfing & had to do it! I thought it was perfect for a little girl fixing to start swim lessons!

Jolie Kay Lankford

So, that's it! It took a lot of time but it was definitely worth it!! Especially when you see a face like this when she opens her Stink shirt!

And mom sent me this picture from yesterday. She was babysitting & Jolie showed up in her custom Aunt Kelly outfit. I can not tell you how excited I am to see her in it! Mom said she was being a total little show off! I love being her aunt!!

I did do the cupcakes for her party, but I haven't had a chance to post them yet. Coming very soon! Think Disney's Tangled!

Archie Parr

Our friends Kristen & Jennifer threw a baby shower for our friends Amanda & Chris Parr this weekend. The are expecting a boy on July 4th, named Archie. As is the case with our hectic lives, unfortunately the shower in College Station was the same day as my neice Jolie's 3rd birthday party, in Sinton.

 Of course, I got my sewing machine busy for both Archie & Jolie's presents! I sent my present for Archie with Jen & spent the weekend in Sinton with my family & the birthday girl!

 Archie got a onesie with his name on it, a onesie with a coordinating tie, styrofoam letters for the bath & this really cool frog that gets hung up by the tub for all the cool baby toys!

I hated not being there, but I hope Archie will like his personalized clothes!! I checked out Amanda's blog The Parr Family Adventures this morning & she already had pictures posted! And yes, I'm super excited that there's one of mommy Amanda holding up the Archie onesie!! By the look of the picutres, Jen & Kristen did a great job! The decorations are super cute!!

Practice, Practice

So I haven't made roll-out sugar cookies in a while, and after using that pre-made stuff for my sugar cookie fries, I decided it was time. The icing that I grew up using is a mixture of just powdered sugar & water. Super easy & soo good! Only problem is, it doesn't pipe well. Since I'm into trying new things, I have been searching the internet for a good royal icing recipe that I can use to pipe.

I have tried one recipe from the blog Sweetopia twice, once with my Valentine's Day cookies and again at my friend Kristen's shower. Both times, the icing turned out okay, but not great. I can't seem to get the consistencies correct, especially for flooding. So after more blog searching, I decided to try a new recipe from Sweet Sugar Belle.

Hers used less powdered sugar & a spray bottle. Interesting, I know. I'm not sure if it's because I was a little more practiced or patient, but this time, it worked! I broke the icing down into two batches. One, I made thicker for piping & the other had a much thinner consistency for flooding. Since these were just for fun, I decided to use my favorite shapes that would be pretty to pipe. I went with hearts, three kinds of flowers, & an ice cream cone, just for summer! I used very bright & vibrant colors.

It was definitely a learning process. Do you pipe the border & then fill it immediately? Can you layer wet icing on wet icing or does it need to be completely dry? You can see in the ones I did, there was definitely a learning curve!

I really liked the tulips! Very pretty! :)

These little flowers on stems are by far my favorite. Love the yellow petal with a pink center!

These cookies are alot of work! I'm thinking next time, I might try a combination of my old icing & the new royal icing. Flat ice with mine in one color & then just use the royal icing for piping. That would make it a little easier. We'll see! And since today is the last day of school for Drew, they went to work with him. Enjoy!