while we're talking cupcakes here..

i found a free printable for "build your own cupcake" online. i imagine this could be cute used in many places. not just on paper either. perhaps on an iron-on transfer for fabric for a little girl to play with? maybe make them a little more 3-d with velcro? i digress. here's the link..

build your own cupcake!

first post... Mason's birthday party!

i definitely inherited my love for baking and cake decorating from my mom. all throughout my childhood, if someone in our family got married, she was the one baking their wedding cake. i used to watch her when i was super little, and then when i got older.. she would let me help her, little things like cracking the eggs and mixing the batter, or heating up water when she was smoothing the butter creme frosting.. for some silly reason, my favorite thing to do was to peel the wax paper off the bottom of the cakes once they had cooled. she had just about every size wilton cake pan you could imagine, plates and pillars for the times when she had to be the ultimate cake architect (she once built in a fountain), and several containers of frosting tips so she could create endless decorations.

she would have made my wedding cake too (she was so excited about the design i'd chosen) but she passed away five weeks before my (then) fiance and i got married. i decided then to take on the project of making my own wedding cake.. even though i'd never done anything more than watch her. i can't take all of the credit though. my really fantastic friend mark helped me put it all together and then i did the decorating.





that was just about 2 years ago. when i brought all of her cake supplies home from our wedding, i put them away because it was it was too painful to see them all.


fast forward two years. my sister had a baby, mason, who has turned one. i don't know what quite came over me, but i asked her if i could make his cake and cupcakes for his party. i just had this want to do it. we chatted and she forwarded me a link to the decorations and supplies that she bought for the party. a super cute jungle theme. the main characters were tigers, lions, and elephants. i'd never used fondant either (my mother hated it.. never, ever used it).. but i'd watched enough cake-themed tv shows to be confident enough to take a crack at it. i think i was pretty successful too :)

this was the result.. chocolate lions, vanilla tigers, red velvet elephants, and chocolate/vanilla marble balloons.







i'm not quite sure where i'll be going with future baking projects, but i've given my information out to a few people to see what direction the wind will blow me..