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!

Cupcake Party! Tubers, flamingos, hearts & pool balls

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?

Getting crafty!



This is for a friend at work, & no, it's not mispelled!

  So after stalking my friend JP's blog, Paisley Pink Polka Dots, a lot of practice & some extra time, I decided I would be making lots of my Christmas presents this year. I was very excited to be able to try lots of new stuff & hopefully save us some money! Drew was excited until he realized how much time I would be devoting to my new plan. Also, our house kind of turned into a disaster. A big disaster. It started in my craft room & then kind of oozed into the kitchen, garage, & living room, but things didn't get heated until I accidental got a tiny amount of hot pink spray paint on his BBQ pit. I mean really, is it that big of a deal? Apparently it was & I had to clean up my house full of crafts which Drew started referring to as our Vacation Bible School mess! (yes, we're Baptist) So anyway, we made it & I finished everything that I started for our family & friends! I have a couple of presents I still haven't finished, ok, (haven't even started), but it's only February, I'll get to them before next Christmas! I'm trying to give my husband a break! And for some reason, I'm assuming because Christmas at my mom's with my 3 year old niece is a little hectic, I didn't get a single picture of my mom with anything I made her. What makes that even more crazy is that I made her the most stuff out of anyone!! The last time I was down, I did take a picture of her Lankford sign,

It is going to look awesome when it is finally hung on her maroon living room wall. So, what do you think?

 A cute picture frame for my sister-in-law Teria's desk at school. The picture is of her, my adorable niece Jolie & nephew Cade.
(Mom got one of these as well, with a picture of just the grand kids)

 This sign was commissioned for my brother Cody by my dad. They do A LOT of hog hunting. And I had a lot of fun making this sign rustic by glazing it & beating it up with a hammer, crow bar & even a screw driver!

 This is one of my favorites! A sign to hang outside my brother & sister-in-law's house. He had it hung up the day I gave it to him!

Here's my dad with the picture frame I made for his desk. We love you daddy!! I got the idea from this post on the blog How Does She.

 This is my absolute favorite thing I made this Christmas! Luckily for me, my brother's family went & had pictures taken right before Christmas. I made this frame for their living room. I got the idea from the blog House of Smith's. Here's is even bigger because she used canvas pictures inside the frame.

  This is our niece Kynlee posing with the chalkboard I made her out of an old cabinet door. This is where I got my inspiration.

This is Kynlee's mommy with the sign I made for their house.

This is Drew's sister Lauren. She is getting married to a friend of mine in May, so I made them a sign with their new last name & wedding date. Lauren & Stanley's was the first sign I had ever made! (My parents got a sign with this color combination, Lankford Est. 1979)

These are Drew's parents, my parents-in-law. I really like how their short last name looks on the sign!

This is Drew's aunt & uncle, Doug & Sheri (Tui) Bolland. I drew Tui's name for Christmas, so of course she got a sign! I did hers a little more rustic & absolutely love the way it turned out!

As you can see, I was VERY busy!! So I'm glad everyone liked their presents & a big thank you to Drew to putting up with me while I was doing soo much crafting!!

Christmas present!!

So I am very happy to announce that Drew got me one of the things I really wanted on my Christmas list this year. What?, you ask, Bakerellas new book, Cake Pops! 

We were headed to a New Year's Eve party at Drew's friends house in Houston, so of course I immediately had to try something new! I already had red & green candy melts at the house so I picked something out with those colors in mind. I decided to try her Cupcake Pops.In the book, her professionally done pops look like this:

Knowing mine wouldn't be this good on my first try, I got to work! We made our cupcake pops chocolate with cream cheese icing & a mix of vanilla and chocolate candy coating. They weren't as hard as I thought they would be, but definitely more messy than I had imagined! Notice how all her pop sticks are still white? Mine, not so much! So please don't judge, it was my first time! Here are my pops

Yes, those are M&Ms on top!

 

As you can tell, I used all my random, left over Christmas sprinkles!

 

I went ahead & made some regular pops as well. (Really they were the back ups in case my cupcake pops were total fails!)

As you can tell, my taste tester was very excited!!

Anyway, they were a HUGE hit at the party! Yea for a successful first Cupcake Pop try!

And as a side note, compared to Bakerella's website shots, I really need to work on the art in my photography! Her pictures look so much better!! :(



Toy story alien cupcakes

Sorry, it's been so long since I've blogged! I was very busy during Christmas, & then I just got lazy!! So now I'm playing catch up!

I received an order from a friend of a friend who needed cupcakes for her son's birthday party back in November. He is a big fan of the Toy Story series, so we went back & forth on which character would make the cutest cupcakes. They decided on the green, three eyed alien. (does he have a name?) Anyway, she ordered 2 dozen full size alien cupcakes and 1/2 dozen mini swirl cupcakes with sprinkles, all vanilla in Toy Story wrappers. Drew helped me with these & spent the entire time making the noise that the alien makes in the movie. VERY funny at first, then kinda annoying! Love you babe! Here are the finished products.

Total alien invasion!!

I mean seriously, how cute are these?!

The birthday boy absolutely loved them!! And now, Drew & I want to catch up on the Toy Story movies!

Thanks Mindy!

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!