Candycane crunch...

Because all cupcakes need just a little more flair :). These made for a perfect treat at Christmas!

Gobble, gobble

What's better than a cooked turkey? A cupcake turkey of course :). These made their debut at the Thanksgiving feast at my office. Eat me, please! Don't worry, the other half of the nutter butter cookies and the rest of the candy corns... they were eaten too...

For my bug...

Happy 1st birthday Charlie!! You'll probably be 40 and I'll still call him my little bug :). The gobstoppers had to be removed before he ate them though!

This is what happens when your birthday is the day after Halloween :)

Happy birthday Daddy! Or, um, Happy Halloween?

Just a lady bug & sunflower kind of day...

Happy birthday Katheryn! These sunflowers were easy to make... the lady bugs were a little more difficult. But I LOVE how these turned out!

Go CSU!

Unfortunately, even these cupcakes couldn't help the Rammies win... but that won't stop me from trying again next year!

For the mommy-to-bee

A bumble bee themed shower for the mommy-to-bee :) Don't worry though, these little bees won't sting you - they are just here to welcome in the new little precious baby!

I wanna be a rockstar!

For a guitar-playin, music -ovin teenager with a rockstar dream :)

Just monkey'ing around

These are some of my favorites still. So cute you could just eat 'em up :) And, this was the first time I learned how fun gel icing can be!

A hole in one!

Happy golfing! A wonderful little addition to a golf-themed get together.

When you dream of becoming a Thunderbird...

Congratulations Nicholas! The Thunderbird stars were designed for his party! Well, the stars were plan B. The original plan was to mold the aircraft out of candy and cover it in icing. Literally 3 hours and an epic fail later, the stars became the perfect design :)

Bloom!

I love these ones! Although they are fairly time consuming, they are pretty simple. Glad the Lionesses and the Olson's BBQ liked them too :)

For the vino lover...

My first official "job" (thanks Jes!) Lot's of purple, and yummy laffy taffy make up these grape vines.

Go Rockies!

Happy Father's Day Daddy!! (Oh yea, and Go Rockies!!) Donut holes, cookies and caramels are just a few of the ingredients. Another cool thing about these... I submitted them into cupcake making contest for the Denver Post. I didn't win, but I did get honorable mention in the printed paper which was good enough for me!

Cheers to the birthday boy!

These are an original design for Kane's (the beer connoisseur's) birthday in June. What better design than a beer mug for the passionate home brewer!? The funniest part of these was the frustration over trying to get the icing a brown color. I probably could have just bought chocolate icing and saved myself the color mixing disaster :)

Graduation time for Kassidy

Also in May was Kassidy and her friend's highschool graduation party. "Apples & Grads" was the theme for these cupcakes. I made a combination of red and green apples, using donuts cut in half to create the shape for the top of the apple. One green apple had a pretty gruesome fate... squished in my hand. It wasn't all fun and games :).

For the graduating girls, I made them each special cupcake too. A "graduation cap" sat on top of three graduate cupcakes, and I was so excited to show the girls. Well, the good news is that they did get to see them... the bad news? Some random (and I mean party crasher) kid walked into the kitchen, looked at the cupcake display, and somehow, yes somehow decided to EAT one of the graduation cupcakes. I had a minor melt down after I found out, but I have to say that it makes for a pretty funny story to this day!

Because even 18 year olds like duckies

For Kassidy's 18th birthday, what's a more appropriate theme than... ducks?! These were my first attempt at actually constructing something on top of a cupcake. Using donut holes for the heads, marshmallows for the tails and starbursts for the beaks and feet... the ducks were hatched. (And by the way, icing covered donut holes are fantastic).

The beaks were pretty difficult to hold in place, so I used toothpicks to keep them where they should be. There are usually one or two cupcakes that deserve honorable mention. I'd like to introduce you to "Cig," he's the gansta duck and the head honcho in this duck posse.

And so the cupcake making begins...

Who would have thought that a St. Patrick's Day kid's craft rainbow cupcake recipe would have launched my passion (or obsession!) for cupcakes. Besides the near Blackberry casualty (I dropped it in the green cake mix), I would venture to say that these turned out pretty successfully, and thankfully so, considering the joy cupcake making has brought me ever since.