I've had this idea of hosting a cupcake party at my house for a while & finally made it happen! I wanted to do this because in all of my books, there are some adorable cupcake designs that I wanted to make, but would probably never have a specific occasion to bake them for. So, I invited my 3 most baking friendly girls for a night of cupcake decorating at my house. I baked all of the cupcakes, full size & minis and the icing in advance. Each girl picked out a specific cupcake that they wanted to try & create. All of our example cupcakes came from these books,
which the 4 of us all own. My party girls were my bff Tiffany, her mom Pam & our friend Kinsey. After each girl picked out the cupcake they wanted to create, they were in charge of bringing the supplies to make 12 of them. During the party, we'd pick one design at a time & all create it together. So that means, each of us would make 3 of each person's pick & we'd all go home with an assortment of 12 cupcakes, 3 of each of the 4 designs. We had an absolute blast having a girls night while decorating! Here's all the cupcakes in the order we created them:
These were Tiffany's pick. She wanted to do the pool balls to practice for her husband Kevin's birthday. They were really cute. It took us a while to figure out the colors on the striped balls & yes, we know that our numbers do not correspond to the colors. We thought they were super cute & lots of fun! We used sugar sprinkles to add the color & the tops were spree candies that we dipped in white icing & then piped with numbers. 
Next up was Kinsey's choice. She chose the pink flamingos & reeds.
These turned out to be one of my favorites of the night. How cute are they?! She picked these as a possibility for her daughter Ava's birthday party.
They neck of the flamingo is a straight pretzel stick, the head is a jelly bean, the nose is one of those banana candies (who knows what they're called?) & the wings were candy melts that we piped on to wax paper & then chilled in the refrigerator.
The water that the reeds are in, is just blue sugar. The reeds themselves are made out of diagonally cut sour straws. The colors together were so bright & pretty!
Next up, was Mama Pam. She picked some Valentine day cupcakes for us to try. The hearts on top were a Sara Lee frozen pound cake that you thaw & cut into hearts using a cookie cutter. The hearts were "glued" onto the bases with icing & then we dipped them into different colored melted icing. 
We know our writing skills aren't the best, but we were using a store bought icing pen for quickness, instead of filling a bag & piping real icing. Lesson learned on these- throw away the scrap pound cake immediately or you will be dipping it into the icing & eating the rest of the night!
And these were my choice! Drew & I have loved these since I first bought the book so they were a no brainer for me! They took some time because of all the different details but they were soo worth it!! Each of us created ourselves & our husbands! The heads, bodies & arms were made out of mini vanilla wafers. The girls bikini tops were made out of Dot candy.
The tubes are mini chocolate covered donuts. Our flippers were cut & shaped out of gummy airheads. The bottles the boys are holding are cut sour belts & all hair & facial features were piped with icing. 
This is Drew & I! The cupcake in the middle is our icechest filled with drinks! (all diet dr. pepper of course) I loved all of the tubers!
Here we are from left to right, Kinsey, me & Tiffany!
Wish someone was there to get all 4 of us! Here's Mama Pam
We had an absolute blast & want to do this again really soon! Here are some more pictures of all of our hard work!
Anyone interested in having a cupcake party?
