Pumpkin Carving and Baby Arms!

With each passing year, I love Halloween more and more! This year was my 4th annual pumpkin carving party. It is always so much fun looking at dessert recipes and picking which ones I want to make for the party. I made my first attempt at an Amy Atlas style dessert bar set up. This year I made "Buried Alive" cupcakes (modified from a Rachel Ray muffin recipe), Oreo spiders and mini eyeball cupcakes. I purchased giant chocolate dipped and sprinkled marshmallows from the bakery counter at Hallmark and popcorn from Velvet Creme Popcorn (headquartered within 1/4 mile from my house!). The "Buried Alive" cupcakes were the hit of the party! The most popular question of the night was "Where did you find all those baby doll arms?" Hobby Lobby. In fact, I cleared them OUT of their baby doll arms. After a potluck dinner and the dessert buffet, people carved and painted pumpkin. Lauren's was my favorite: a dinosaur with a talk bubble saying "OH YEAH." Being that she lives in an apartment, it got to stay on my porch for Halloween! All in all, a great Halloween to go down in the books.

Sweet Suds

Ran across this little soap shop in Vancouver where they make dessert-shaped soaps! They had their window set up like a bake shop except everything is soap. Kinda depressing when you can't eat any of the "sweets" but also pretty freaking cool! My favorite was the fruitcake soap! How cute would that be in your bathroom during an ugly sweater party? They also had tiny soaps wrapped up in cellophane like candies.

Alice In Wonderland=PURE SWEETNESS!

I just got back from seeing the new "Alice in Wonderland" in 3D. It was so worth the $13 ticket! One of my favorite things about the movie was the costume design. The were all so thoughtfully done and honestly blew my mind. Apparently they were inspired by some of the original illustrations accompanying early editions of the Lewis Carroll 1865 classic. Here are some costume sketches for a couple of Alice's looks in the movie this WWD Lifestyle article.

The sketch above was my favorite Alice dress.

Being that one of my favorite memories of the Disney animated "Alice In Wonderland" was the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, when Elissa sent me the link to these wonderful Wonderland inspired treats from The Bakelab I was overwhelmed with the desire to nibble on every single thing. I wish I could have had the whole box on my lap as I watched the movie. I still may order them just to quench my curiosity of what a "Cheshire Cat Macaroon with Earl Grey Tea Filling" tastes like! Perhaps I could have people over and host my own little Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Gee, I wonder who I could get to be the Mad Hatter himself...Thanks for sharing Elissa!

100 Cupcake for 100 Games!

Whoa. Holy Cupcake! Robin Dahlberg made 100 cupcakes depicting 100 different games. She did an amazing job! Here are my favorites:

"Battleship"

"Life"

They call this one "Break Away" but I see it as "Alley Way".

To see all 100 cupcakes, click here.

Unexpected places people buy cupcakes...

GARAGE SALES! Made up a big batch of Halloween cupcakes for Bret's garage sale yesterday. I made chocolate with cream cheese frosting, white with cream cheese frosting and white with (orange dyed) vanilla frosting. My lack of Halloween cupcake decorations led me to also make tiny pumpkins picks. I was hoping lots of kids would come but it turned out most of my sales were to adults. The cupcakes left over from the garage sale went to trick or treaters when I ran out of candy. I had over 100 kids come by! My mother never would have let me take a cupcake from a complete stranger for fear that I would ingest a razor blade.

Halloween Tasty Treats

I hosted my 3rd Annual Pumpkin Carving Party this past Tuesday. One of my favorite things about throwing this party every year is that it gives me an excuse to search out fun Halloween recipes. This year I went above and beyond what I normally do and whipped up 4 different Halloween desserts.

(Furter got to wear his new costume for the party!)

Witch fingers: chocolate dipped pretzel sticks with almond "fingernails", Butterscotch Haystacks
Skull cupcakes and Nutter Butter Ghost cookies. Any great dessert ideas I can file away for next year?

Busy time of year

Like everyone else, I have been busy as a bee lately. It seems a lot of my peeps have birthdays around this time of year so I am constantly working on birthday surprises! Below are some of my recent creations.
Being that Adam and Josh are both "International Men of Mystery," International themed baby cupcakes were in order! My nephew turned 1 last month so I headed to Atlanta to help him celebrate. A birthday wouldn't be complete, though, without a fancy, over-the-top hat to match your party color scheme! As you can see, my nephew was not a fan.
Here are some gifts I recently sent to a friend for her big day. It's hard to tell which I love more sometimes-picking out the gifts or wrapping them!

Rainbow cupcakes are sweeping the nation!

Rainbow cupcakes are soooooooo hot right now. They are popping up everywhere! Why not, though, look how beautifully delicious they are! Guess which ones I'll be making next Easter...

Tiny Bites Cupcakes+Art=Good Times

I made cupcakes for Bret, Aaron, and Cindy's gallery show at the Hobbs Building last night. I was originally going to make tiny cookies AND tiny cupcakes and at the last minute, they were combined to create a 2-desserts-in-1 masterpiece, if I do say so myself. I will be making more for the continuation of their show today so I'd better get crackin'.

Creative Cupcakes

My sister sent me the coolest picture today of some lovely Peeps cupcakes. I wanted to post it on here but have been unable to locate it. In my search, I found a bunch of other cute cupcakes for your viewing pleasure. I especially love the Joker.

Up to my ears in sugar!

Last week was a week for baking! With Elissa's birthday lunch on Friday and a Twilight party on Saturday, I was up to my ears in batter and icing! Check out my creations...
Lion and Lamb cookies for the movie viewers (on my new Orla Kiely tray!!!!).

Tiny pink cupcakes for the birthday girl, Elissa:)

I can't wait for my next baking inspiration...

The Beginnings of "Sugar Pants"

I was down in Austin, TX a few weeks back. I have been there once before but it was on this trip that I realized exactly HOW cool Austin really is. I mean, where else could you accidentally stumble upon something as magnificent as "Hey Cupcake!" We were just walking along and all of a sudden, BAM! there it was on the corner of S. Congress and Milton. I swear, the rotating cupcake on the roof is like a freaking honing device or something.The line was crazy long but if you've ever been to the Magnolia Bakery in NYC, you know the crowds a good cupcake can draw and you know that however long you have to wait, it will be worth it in the end. Unfortunately, Donavan, having never been to the Magnolia Bakery, did not seem quite as willing as I was to wait in the multiple hour long line for a cupcake. So instead, we took pictures and swore we'd hit it up next time around.
Luckily, there was a fantastic candy store across the street, Big Top Candy Shop, where we got a heaping bag of candy and ice cream cones and watched all the people waiting in line at "Hello Cupcake!" for a sugar fix of their very own. The picture shown is Donavan and our "look out" spot right by the window.
After an afternoon of such fond sugar-filled memories, I was inspired to start a blog where I could share not only my vast knowledge of the where-abouts of sugar meccas but also my love of all things cute, sweet and fun. And thus, "Sugar Pants" was born. Enjoy!