ADVENTURES WITH BIRTHDAY CUPCAKES!

Our family loves cupcakes! I love the fact that I can make them at home, and have a cheap alternative to expensive store bought Birthday cakes.  I can't make or decorate a cake to save my life! I can make cupcakes though, and recently I have been attempting to decorate said cupcakes to match our Birthday themes.

My first attempt was with Monkey's 10th Birthday.  We opted out of a party and instead went to a local pumpkin patch (October Birthday) with all the kids and Monkey's best friend.  So I decided to try and make monkey cupcakes for my Monkey!  ***NOTE: When Monkey was a baby he was huge..8lbs 11oz and 22 3/4 inch long..and he only got chubbier as he got older so I called him Chunky Monkey. Then he thinned out when he started walking so I dropped the chunky and have called him Monkey since***

My attempt at a monkey cupcake.

I simply made a box cake mix batch of cupcakes. I used chocolate icing for the face.  I cut the mini Nilla wafers using a standard steak knife for the ears, and standard size  Nilla wafers for the mouth.  The eyes were made with Reece's peanut butter chips and the nose and mouth were gel like cake icing.

This was the inspiration picture I found on Pinterest, unfortunately it doesn't link to any site.

In hindsight I should have placed my monkey ears more to the side then the top, but hey we ate every one of them and Monkey thought they were great!

Baby Boogie's 2nd Birthday was just this past Monday so we threw her party Sunday evening.  It was just family, and the kids in our family.  We had an Whooo is turning two theme, so it was centered around Owl's.  I had found some great owl themed pink/purple party decor at Wal-Mart for really cheap $1.00 each. 

My attempt at an owl cupcake.

Using a box cake mix (funfetti) I made the cupcakes, and used chocolate icing for the face. I separated Oreo's to get the eyes...Oreo's don't like to separate cleanly so I just used a butter knife to scrape all the missing filling from the non used side of the Oreo and tried to smooth it on the side I was using. I used gel icing for the pupils of the eyes and almond slices for the beaks.  I was planning on using the almond slices for ears but Jerm ate them before I could! Oh well, he didn't know. Don't worry about wasted plain Oreo sides..we ate them!

Here was my inspiration, another broken link on Pinterest!

Jerm's Birthday is today and he said he wanted a marble cake. I reminded him I don't do cakes, but I could attempt marble cupcakes.  

Marble cupcakes.

I simply bought a box mix of Yellow cake and one of Devils food cake.  I put a large spoonful of the yellow into the cupcake liners, then a small spoonful of the chocolate. 

( I don't measure things...I just go with it)

I used a butter knife (for lack of a better word) to fold the two mixes together.  I didn't want to swirl them too much because I was afraid the Yellow cake would just mix right into the Devil's Food cake.  I was going to attempt a marble affect with cream cheese and chocolate icing but yeah that wasn't too pretty! :)

I never practice these before hand, and I didn't have any real directions but the kiddos and the hubby seemed pleased with the results so I was happy!