One of the benefits of being a blogger of sweets is eating said sweets–in this case, chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting–at any time of the day. Another benefit? Joining a community of like-minded sweets makers and bloggers. Today I join 20 other bloggers as we craft cupcakes to match our bella cupcake couture cupcake wrappers. Hosted by Carrie Middlemiss from Bella Cupcake Couture and Betsy Eves, of JavaCupcake.com & Cupcakes Take the Cake, it’s a Cupcake Couture Blog Party to show you how good cupcakes can look, and how easy it is to make them wow. And there’s a giveaway. A giveaway of over 500 bucks worth of cool stuff!  To enter the GIVEAWAY, scroll to the end of this post.

Visit everyone to see what they did with their cupcake wrappers:

Bella Cupcake Couture

Chronicles of a Foodie

Crazy for Crust

Creative Food

Cupcakes Take the Cake

Diary of a Mad Hausfrau

Eat Your Heart Out

Haniela’s

Hoosier Homemade

In Katrina’s Kitchen

Inside BruCrew Life

Java Cupcake

Love From the Oven

Make Bake Celebrate

Not Just a Mommy

Sugar Daze

Sugar Swings! Serve Some

The Baked Equation

The Baking Cup

The Decorated Cookie

I got these colorful polka dots. I had a bunch of ideas to decorate the cupcakes in polka dots. Icing dots, sprinkle dots, candy dots, fondant dots. But I wanted to use the actual cupcake wrappers in the decorating. So I made these super-easy polka dot cupcake wrapper cupcake toppers. Just use cardstock in coordinating colors to any cupcake wrapper, or buy an extra set of cupcake wrappers and use those.

For the cupcakes, make your favorite recipe or just use store-bought cake mix. I then prepared my buttercream frosting, added a bit of white food coloring to brighten the frosting, and prepared a disposable decorating bag with a size “1M” tip. Pipe the frosting on top of the cupcake and let set a bit.

For the polka dot cupcake toppers…

you will need:*

cupcake wrappers and/or coordinating cardstock

scissors or a 1 1/2-inch circle punch

craft knife and mat

6-inch lollipop sticks

*Find the supplies in the craft store.

what to do:  Use the circle punch (or just trace a circle and cut out with scissors) to cut circles from extra cupcake wrappers and/or cardstock. With the craft knife, on a mat, cut a small “X” in the middle of a circle. Thread the lollipop stick through the “X” and repeat with more circles. Insert the topper into the cupcake.

More TIPS: To make the backdrop, I just cut out larger circles from the cardstock and glued to white paper. I also cut out circles to place on top of these cupcake stands.

And now… THE GIVEAWAY!!!

Look at all this cupcake coolness you can win from these great sponsors:

Thanks to our amazing Prize Pack sponsors for their generous donations! Please, visit their websites to see more of their fabulous products!

Cupcake Stand

Java Cupcake

Lil’ Punkin Creations

Sweets & Treats Boutique

To enter to WIN this Prize Pack, simply fill out the entry form below.

Contest opens May 21st at 07:00 am PST and closes May 27th at 11:59 pm PST. One winner will be chosen and announced within 24 hours of the contest ending. Winner will be contacted via email to claim their prize.

This contest is open to residents of the USA and Europe only.

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!

I rarely sew. When I do, the results tend to be comical. Picture uneven hems, knots where there shouldn’t be knots, and thread stuck in the sewing machine. But a few stitches I can handle. And, I just re-took up needlepoint, which I find much more manageable than creating fashion or awe-inspiring home decor.

These stitched yarn monogram cupcake toppers are well within my range of do-able, because they are that easy to make. Use these to personalize cupcakes or to spell out a message. Or to write whatever your heart desires.

to make yarn monogram cupcake toppers…

you will need:

yarn

tapestry or embroidery needle

cardstock with a good thickness

white mailing labels

scissors

pencil

lollipop sticks

 cupcakes

what to do:

First, cut the cardstock to the size topper you want. I made rectangles 1 1/2 inches by 2 inches. Lightly sketch a letter in pencil. Thread the tapestry needle with the yarn and sew on the paper to cover the pencil. TIP: It helps to poke holes along the letter first where you want to sew. When the letter is finished, cut a piece of mailing label to cover the ends and attach the lollipop stick on the back. Stick in a cupcake and serve.

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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!

This whole kids-drawing-on-cookies thing is not new to this blog. My daughter first make her own cookie art HERE when she was just a wee lass of two. And I gave my niece these framed cookies and a set of markers for her 7th birthday. Well, I adapted that same idea for her 8th birthday, celebrated at a kid’s art studio (did they have those when I was a kid? because I would’ve loved that).

And drawing on food is old hat around here, of course. For tips on choosing and buying edible writers, click HERE.

To make these, I used a small rectangle cutter to cut out the cookies with my cookie dough. Then I prepared my royal icing and tinted it white and gold with Americolor Soft Gel Pastes (Bright White and Egg Yellow). Then, I prepared a disposable decorating bag with couplers and tip, size “4″. I filled the bag with the gold and closed with a rubber band. I piped rectangles on the cookies, leaving a border. Then, I switched the tip to size “3″ and piped the frame part. After the gold set a bit, I thinned the white icing to flooding consistency, filled an empty decorating bag, snipped the tip and piped to fill the frames. Let the cookies dry super duper well, overnight.    (For basic cookie decorating how-tos click HERE.) To package, place a cookie in a cello bag, tie with ribbon and attach an edible writer to the ribbon.

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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!

But not here. I want to end any confusion from the start to be sure you all maximize your chances to win. You see, the IZZE facebook page is hosting a contest, the Hello Good contest. Snap a picture with your favorite bottle of IZZE (they of the delicious sparkling juices flavored naturally with no extra sugar and perfect for parties because the bottle is so pretty). Then upload said picture onto the IZZE facebook page to enter their contest for a chance to win a year’s supply of IZZE.

THEN, get more chances to win cool stuff over at my other gig, HERE at Edible Crafts. Cool stuff like another chance for a year’s supply of IZZE. And 100 bucks to shop at Target. Or a gift card to Whole Foods. After you upload your picture to IZZE and enter your contest, just leave me a comment at Edible Crafts HERE with a link to your entry and you’re entered. Confused? Just click HERE for all the info. 

Want to see what I did with my bottles of IZZE? I dressed them up in costumes for Halloween. You needn’t get this, um, overly involved with your bottles like I did. You can simply snap a picture anywhere with anyone or anything. But given it’s Halloween, these bottles were just craving costumes I think.

All the eyes you see I just cut out of construction paper and drew black dots, but a hole punch or eye stickers would have been easier. For the bats, I folded a piece of black construction paper, cut out one side of the wings at the fold, unfolded and used a glue stick to attach to the bottle. For the mummy, I cut strips of white cloth and attached to the bottle with a glue stick.

For the ghost, I draped a circle of white cloth over the bottle, securing to the cap with glue, and glued on the eyes. For the witch, I made the hat with construction paper and glued to the cap.

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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!

Posts without sugar are rare for me, I know. And these so easily could have been turned into sugar-filled sweets, but I wanted to test out my “Bone Chillers” ice cube tray the traditional way first. Almost the traditional way. I added food coloring. And it worked. Although my fingers got a bit stained popping them out of the tray, they add an almost beautiful, if eerie, touch to a glass of water. Sparkling water would’ve been waaaaay better. No, vodka would’ve been waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than water. Next Halloween, when this baby in my belly is almost one and I can freely chug vodka. I got my little Halloween surprise in the mail in the form of a box filled with fun things. It had this ice cube tray from Fred and Friends, some creepy plastic eyeballs, glow-in-the-dark paint, a ceramic faucet to make a pumpkin keg, and pretty Fall notecards from Ruff House Art.

This box of Fall was the October Celebrate Crate. Find lots more inspiration HERE.

And learn more about getting your own monthly crate HERE.

To make these ice cubes, I just filled by skull and cross bones silicon ice cube tray with water. Then I added a couple drops of Americolor Soft Gel Paste into each cavity (I used Orange, Electric Purple and Electric Green), then stirred a bit with toothpicks. Pop them out into drinks. Preferably drinks more exciting than tap water. The food coloring will spread throughout the beverage in an oh so Halloween-like way.

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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!