Like many, I have an affinity for fairy woodland gnome toadstool fawn forest type scenarios. Something about the combination is so very earthy and retro and magical. These fabric cupcake wrappers were inspired by the sculptable frosting figures created by my friend Cheryl at Sew Can Do. (Teaser: Cheryl will be guest posting on Thursday to show you how to make sculptable frosting cupcake toppers!!).

I  immediately envisioned her sugar figures atop cupcakes, and I did something I don’t often do… go for fabric. Sewing and me, we don’t match seamlessly (pun totally intended, pretty good one, right?). But sewing and Cheryl, perfect together. So she inspired me in two ways today.

I bought these gnome, deer and evergreen tree cupcake toppers from the Layer Cake Shop. I made chocolate cupcakes, topped with chocolate buttercream and crumbled, chocolate cookies, and popped them in the wrappers.

to make woodland cupcake wrappers

you will need*

felt (two shades of green, red and white)

cupcake wrapper template

paper

sharp scissors

glue

cupcake toppers (or, Cheryl’s toppers)

*A good quality, sturdy felt is best for wrappers. I got mine from Wool Felt Central. Because felt can be a pain to glue, a tacky glue is best. For the cupcake wrapper template, there are plenty online (such as HERE at Skip to My Lou), or just copy the one found at the back of Sugarlicious, since I’m assuming you own Sugarlicious.

step one: cut out the felt

Print or trace the cupcake wrapper template on a piece of paper, cut out and use as a template to cut out felt. Either pin the template to the felt, or use a pencil or sewing pen to trace on the felt. For each grass wrapper, cut out one dark and one light green. For each toadstool wrapper, cut out one red.

step two: cut out the embellishments

For the grass wrappers, take one of the shades of green and cut out grass as shown. For the toadstools, cut out circles in various sizes from white felt.

step three: glue it all together

Overturn the grass felt and dab glue all over the bottom and each of the blades. Carefully layer over the other shade of green cut-out wrapper and press. Let dry. Glue the white dots on the red cut-out wrapper, and let dry. When dry, dab glue along one end of the wrapper, overlap the other end, press to seal, and let dry completely.

step four: add your cupcakes

Pop in a frosted cupcake and add your toppers. To make the edible, sculptable frosting toppers, check back on Thursday when Cheryl stops by for a visit.

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To make the cupcakes, I found a box of yellow cake mix, added a few drops of Americolor Electric Pink soft gel paste to the batter, and got these toxic pink results. A few drops of the same to a quick batch of buttercream (blend one stick butter, a few cups of powdered sugar, a bit o’ vanilla extract and as much milk as is needed to get your desired consistency), and we had pink frosting. And as she was wearing her Cinderella outfit when she asked me to make said pink cupcakes (I should note, she’s never even seen a Disney princess movie, but adores the Wizard of Oz and emulates Glinda, the Good Witch, aka, a princess) I later had to top the cupcakes with some princess accessories.

To frost the cupcakes, I put my buttercream in a disposable frosting bag fitted with a coupler and a star tip (find all those at the craft store), and piped the frosting on top of the cupcake (start in the center, move out to the edge, and pipe round and round, smaller and smaller, to a point on the top). Add light pink sprinkles right after you pipe, if desired. Then stick in the topper.

To make the princess toppers, simply roll out some craft store-bought white fondant (or make your own), cut out shapes (circles, stars, whatever), let stiffen a couple hours, and follow the instructions below for making crowns and wands with sprinkles and food coloring pens. I used hot pink Wilton sprinkles, the sparkling sugars, from the craft store. And I used a black Americolor Gourmet Writer. You’ll also need light corn syrup and a toothpick.

To draw the accessories…. For the wand: With your black gourmet writer, draw a star and a stick. Let dry about 10 minutes. Dab some light corn syrup with the toothpick to totally fill inside the star outline. Be careful not to get corn syrup on any other part of the topper! Sprinkle hot pink sprinkles on top of the star generously. Turn over to remove excess and carefully brush off any errant sprinkles. For the crown: With the toothpick, dab four dots of corn syrup on the fondant topper. Sprinkle with the sprinkles and turn over to remove excess. You should have four dots of sprinkles. With your black gourmet writer, draw the crown. (Click on image to enlarge.)
your shopping list to make these (see links above for more details):
cake mix cupcake liners pink food coloring buttercream frosting frosting bag coupler star tip rubber band toothpick light corn syrup light and/or hot pink sprinkles or sanding sugar black food coloring pen box of fondantTweet

Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!