WHO WANTS CUPCAKES BECAUSE I WANT TO MAKE YOU SOME CUPCAKE TOPPERS. CALL ME.

milo and matilda's ECE school had their annual BBQ this past week and everyone is asked to bring something to share. this year i decided to make Giada De Laurentiis's chocolate chip and mascarpone cupcakes. i did not have time to do a test run and my theory is that its chocolate and you probably cant really tell if its too bad. i decided to make cute little cupcake toppers to go with it and if the cupcakes turn out to be bad, maybe the cuteness of the toppers would distract the people from the bad taste. but really, i have been trying to incorporate all my creativity and love of making and drawing into everyday things. i must admit that i was overly excited for this project and finally had an excuse to buy tons of circle and scallop punches . i went to Paper Source to get them but they had sold out on their last circle punch. i ended up going to Michaels and they were on sale so i got even more punches than planned. whenever i go to Michaels my head gets all crazee and my brain goes in all kind of directions because i get so many ideas and want to do a million zillion projects and want to buy all kinds of crazee sticker making/scrapbook making machines. i wish they would have a rent center for those things so i can actually try it out before making an actual purchase.i should call Michales and tell them to get on it.

milo and i did the cupcakes and the cupcake toppers and we had so much fun. instead of getting wooden picks for the cupcake holders i got these tiny bartender's cocktail sippy straw things. they are just as thin as the wooden picks but i like how it has stripes on them and it goes with the stripe backgrounds on my illustration. the only thing i didnt care about and would like to figure out is to make some kind of pocket for the straw/wooden picks to avoid the little bump after putting on the illustration.

the cupcake actually turned out to be quiet delicious. everyone was pretty impressed when milo showed them what he had made. i kept thinking about how to transport my cupcakes the night before the BBQ and i ended up going to my local bakery asking for an empty cake box (thank you nice bakery lady!). i also got two disposable aluminum foil tray for the cupcakes to sit on and then placing that in the cake box. the aluminum foil tray worked well (even though it seems repetitive to have both) because without the foil tray the cake box is too flimsy and it was hard to balance the cupcake on someone's lap or when carrying it.

p.s. - someone came up to me and told me that she really appreciate the i am nut free sign because she has a nut allergy. i told her that i appreciate her telling me and i like to announce it whenever i can since milo has a high nut allergy and its nice to know instead of asking or banning your child from the food. its just nice to make it known to the non nut allergy community because i was certainly not aware of this before milo.

p.p.s. - i enjoyed making the cupcakes and the toppers so much (well i really enjoyed toppers more and in order to make more i had to make more cupcakes) that i made more two days later for the friends we were visiting. this time i went to Whole Foods and they were kind enough to give me empty cupcakes holders to transport and i used Starbucks's wooden stir (cut it in half) as the pick. thank you to the consuming world for letting me use your tools without even knowing.

and try the recipe people. its pretty darn good.