Cake Walk Goodies ~~Ideas I got from Pinterest!

Last Friday was a Halloween Carnival at my kids' school.  I had to bake a couple of somethings for a cake walk and so I scoured Pinterest for ideas.  I ended up making this:

Cupcakes with Homemade Buttercream Icing

 which is a take-off of this:

Found this at Nothing But Country

And this:

Brownies with Buttercream Frosting Brains

Just brownies and buttercream "brains"

which is a take-off of this:

Found this on Living Locurto

Obviously, I used her free printables, too!

For me, this was a multi-day project.  My first hurdle was finding the cups and lids.

I finally found the cups and lids at one (of the five near me) Sam's Club.  Even though I didn't want the domed lids, I had to take anything I could find and make it work.

Then of course, there was lots of baking, frosting making, decorating, and paper cutting to do.  But the hardest part was keeping the spoons stuck on the cups.  Not sure what I was doing wrong.  I used glue dots and curling ribbon.  For a day and a half all I did was reaffix ribbon and spoons.  So even though I have 450 domed lids left over, I will not make these again until I can figure out something better for the spoons.

All the goodies ready to go to school!  3,000 glue dots later!

Linking Here:

Happy Birthday and Independence Day!

Ahh...Good to be home. Good to see you again, too! I didn't get much time to recover from our 2-day drive home before putting on a birthday party for my littlest. I really enjoy his birthday because it is on July 4th! (I get to combine patriotic ideas AND birthday ideas!) {squeal}

I literally threw together this birthday party in a day! Even I am surprised that I pulled it off!

But I found such great ideas from other craft blogs while we were on vacation. {Love you, craft bloggers!} I just had to make them all as soon as we got back. I had about 24 hours to pull it off. So if you are ever looking for some fast party ideas with big impact, these are worth noting:

Poke cake for the birthday cake...

~~Make a white cake, poke holes in top of cake with a fork, dissolve 1 box of jello with 1 cup boiling water and pour over cake (do this for each layer), chill 3 hours, frost cake with cool whip topping~~

Ice Cream Sandwich pops...inspired by this at Living Locurto.

I had to make some red, white, and blue cupcakes with Homemade Buttercream Icing!

I will make buttercream icing any time I have a reason to!

Red and blue Jello flavored popcorn...I found the recipe here at Claire's Creations.

...What are your "go-to" party ideas?...

And seriously, I might have found my new July 4th tradition- Cheesecake Filled Strawberries! Mmmmm. Sadly, I don't have a picture of these, but I filled strawberries with cheesecake filling and topped each with a blueberry. I apologize for no pic. But we ate them all! And honestly, if it weren't for my husband (who knows I get super side-tracked during a party) I wouldn't have any pics at all. I think he took all of these. I did have to rescue them all with some quick editing in iPhoto. Note to self: Teach husband how to focus camera...even on auto.

Cupcakes with Homemade Buttercream (recipe)

Everyone has their own preference when it comes to frosting. Some like the whippy kind, some like the sugary kind...and I love, love, love buttercream. Sweet, melty, buttery, lick-my-lips-for-like-five-minutes-after-I-eat-it buttercream frosting.

My daughter just had a birthday and wanted me to bring cupcakes to her class. What!? Did I just hear an opportunity to make (and eat) buttercream frosting? Yipee! Yahoo!

So baked cupcakes. And I appeased her by making little cardstock cupcake wrappers with her favorite gal, Strawberry Shortcake, on them. Then she got sick. Real sick. Like vomitty sick. All three of my kids got vomitty sick. During her birthday. It was a long week, my friends. Now, luckily, I hadn't frosted the cupcakes I had just baked them. So I put them in the freezer until everyone was better.

So today is the big day for cupcakes at school. I just popped those babies right out of the freezer. Thawed for a bit. And then, finally, whipped up some oh so yummo buttercream. Ok are you just dying to know the recipe. It's not a secret. I just doctored up a recipe so that I would know it from memory.

The world's best buttercream frosting recipe:

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter (That's right 2!!!!), softened at room temp

1tsp vanilla

1lb box of powdered sugar (sifted, if you can)

2Tbsp half and half

1. In a mixer, cream butter. Then add vanilla. Mix together.

2. Add sifted sugar in four increments. Mixing well and scraping bowl after each addition.

3. Add 2 tablespoons of half and half. Mix. Scrape. Mix. Done.

Note: As if I am in any position to lecture on patience! Ha! But remember, some things take time and are worth waiting for. Please promise that you will properly soften your butter. It should be soft like lotion. Um, that's gross. I could just say, the butter should be the consistency of frosting, duh.

And...

Cupcake wrappers were very easy. Next time I make some, I will post on my blog so that you can download them. I just didn't want to post one with a licensed character on it.