Innovative and bold cupcake tattoos sent in by our dear readers.  Some people choose to hide small cupcakes on their bodies, and others display their love and interests for all to see.

this is my 28th birthday present to myself,
tattoo by ryan at holdfast, perth,australia.
hope you like as much as i do
jilly

i got these done at a different image tattoo in midwest city, oklahoma by frank. he is an amazing artist and he is going to do my sleeve of cupcakes.

Vampirechick

Hello! My name is Amanda and I’m from South Jersey. I’m starting Pastry School in a few days, so yesterday I decided to get a cupcake tattoo on my hip. It is my first tattoo (since I just turned 18 in may) and probably my last, but I love it! I came across this website looking for ideas, so I figured I’d send mine in now that it’s finished. Thanks for the inspiration!

CupKates Bakery joins mobile cupcake fray with a cupcake truck that serves the East Bay area.  CupKates announces that its cupcakes are baked fresh daily using only the highest quality ingredients, including Madagascar Bourbon vanilla, Guittard chocolate, and Clover sweet cream butter and milk.  I’ll be making a trip with my family to taste for myself!

According to their twitter page, it seems like CupKates is still figuring out their cupcake truck route.  Take the time to sound off to encourage them to stop by your home or office!

Beautiful cupcake tattoo designs this month include:

Michelle from Las Vegas wrote: I came across your web site a few weeks ago and am amazed by all the cupcake lovers who are just like me!  So I thought I would share my little gem. I just love it. Your site is amazing!  I found so many neat items to add to my collection. Keep up all the good work so all us lovers out here can have our cupcakes 24/7!!

Chealsea from Maryland wrote: HEY GUYS!!! I LOVE CUPCAKES!! My best friend and I make them every time we are together!!! My brother Vaughn did a tattoo on my hip of a cute cupcake I hope you guys can post it!! It was done at pinz and needlez in Maryland :) I love it

Gimme Some Sugar of Las Vegas, NV offer these unique cupcake toppers.  Somehow I am not surprised that they are located in Las Vegas! :)

I often have a difficult time figuring out a great gift for baby showers.  After all, not only the baby receiving this gift, but the mom as well.  Typical gifts such as infant toys, baby consumables, gift certificates are all good choices, but they seem to be a little lacking in imagination.  

Diaper cupcakes present a convenient solution.  It is both imminently practical, has visual impact as a gift, and entirely customizable to any theme relevant for the baby and family you have in mind.  

If you like craftsy or hands-on projects, these step-by-step instructions will help you get started. Here are some diaper cupcake visuals to inspire your creativity:

Of course professionally made cupcakes gifts are also available.  One vendor, Baby Sweet Treat, makes not only cupcakes, but sundaes and lollipops as well.

Joining a growing list of metropolitan cities served by the growing cupcake truck trend is Philadelphia.  Buttercream was started by Kate Carrara who turned a career in law into a career in sweets.  

For more information, go to buttercreamphiladelphia.com or follow her latest specials and locations at twitter.com/buttercreamphl.

Bella cupcake wrappers are meant to kick up decorative cupcakes another notch. If you are tired of the waxy cupcake liners that become semi-transparent after baking, Bella offers stylish wrappers with an assortment of colors and patterns to match your special occasion.

A long-time reader, Karyn, threw a cupcake birthday party for her daughter.  Sometimes all the glamorous photos of boutique cupcakes doesn’t match up to the satisfied smile of a child who ate a cupcake! Entire cupcake party photo set at Facebook.

Mei runs Tiny Hands Online, a handmade jewelry store. She specializes in custom miniature food jewelry! They are tiny things, all less than an inch in size and non-edible despite looking tantalizingly real.

There is a special 15% discount coupon when a customer enters “I Love Cupcakes” when they check out. There is no minimum amount required for purchase and will expire September 22, 2009.

One of our readers pointed out to us that there are free games about cupcakes that you can play on the internet.  I started playing them, and a couple hours passed in a blink of an eye.  After scouring the Internet, here are some of the best ones I found.

Did I miss any others worthy of mention?

Emo Cupcake Dressup

Press “skip the ad” to quickly advance to the game.  Design your own emo cupcake.  Think moody thoughts and make your cupcake RAWR!

Tutti Cuti Cupcake

You own a cupcake shop and need to make ends meet each day.  Decorate the cupcakes that your customers crave as quickly as you can.

Valentine’s Cupcakes

Chase the cupcakes through the 3D environment.  Click on the cupcakes to turn them into hearts.  Click on the hearts to collect them.  Beware the chocolate cupcake imposters.

One of readers, Jess, has gotten a cupcake tattoo!  It looks great Jess, and thanks for providing pictures of the entire tattoo process.  I am sure it will be helpful for those readers contemplating getting one.

Got this cupcake tat for my 28th birthday as a surprise from the hubband! I love love it! I get so many compliments on it, the color is amazing! Chad Westmoreland @ Freaks on Oak in Kansas City, Mo did it. He’s awesome!

ATC loves to feature the works of not only culinary artists, but the traditional kinds as well.  We really enjoyed the unique art of one of our readers who writes us from Europe.

hello!

my name is motelseven, and i am a female graffiti artist OBSESSED with cupcakes!!! just thought i would share the love! my website is www.motelseven.com where you can see more of my cupcake inspired work! keep the cupcakes aliiiiiiive!!!! motelseven ^_^

A couple weeks ago we reported rumors of a giant 7,000 lb cupcake being planned.  The initial plan was an unveiling event that included breaking the Guinness record as well as selling each 1 lb cupcake “slice” for $5 to benefit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation.  If successful, a single cupcake would net a cool $35,000 for charity!

Instead of putting a 7,000 lb of cupcake batter inside an oven, an oven was constructed and hoisted on top of the batter.   During an all-night baking process, the bakers were horrified to find that a heating element had dislodged in the middle of the night and had split the massive cupcake in half.  Scrambling to bake a new cupcake in time for the event, they rallied to make a smaller cupcake through the night.

The new cupcake took 12 hours to fully bake and weighs in at a record setting 1,224 lb, still shattering the old record by a massive margin.

So soon after the Sponge Bob cupcake broke the Guinness record last month, There are rumors of a new giant cupcake in the works. This new behemoth is planned to be a whopping 7,000 pounds and stand 7 feet tall.  This easily trumps the 150 lb Sponge Bob by a wide margin.

The Detroit news reports the following:

Rather than placing the cupcake into the oven, the oven will be placed upon the cupcake — by a crane.

The baking will take 24 hours.

Hylen wasn’t sure how many pounds of flour, eggs, milk and sugar will be used. The short answer: a lot. It will cost $10,000.

Maybe this record will remain standing for awhile.

Who knew cupcakes have even made its way into the national health care debate? Oh the power of the simple cupcake.

Seattle’s Cupcake Royale owner, Jody Hall, has weighed in with her thoughts on the effect of rising health care costs on her small business.

… Hall says something has to be done about the expense of providing health coverage. She says her premiums have increased 20 percent in each of the past few years, and a couple of years ago, they went up 40 percent.

“It’s unsustainable to manage that kind of expense hike, so we are forced to cut our quality of coverage to make it more affordable, and that doesn’t do much for society,” she says.” A lot of small businesses are doing that or cutting insurance altogether.”

Additionally, Jody took part in a White House discussion and gave her perspective about the challenges of health care costs for small businesses.

In a speech given in North Carolina, President Obama pronounced cupcakes to be good for your life.   :)  Watch the speech below, it happens within the first two minutes of the video.

A fairytale story may start and end as simply as this.

Boy meets Girl. Boy designs T-shirts. Girl designs wedding cakes.

They start a business and live happily ever after…in the middle of several thousand cupcakes and racks of custom-designed T-shirts.  (Full Article Here)

Except this story is true.  A tale of following your own dreams, taking a chance, and working on what you love the most.  Another inspirational true cupcake store story at the Huffington Post.

This store pairing concept seems to be gaining steam.  By sharing a retail storefront and marrying two individual retail concepts together, the owners can share space and share marketing power by attracting different spheres of audiences.

In the San Mateo, CA area, I saw a retail concept that married an eyeglass store with a frozen yogurt/dessert store.  It was refreshing and fun.  Have you seen other store pairings in your local area?

Guinness World Records  certified a 150+lb cupcake made by JodiLee Knops, cakes.com pastry chef, as the world’s largest cupcake at an event at Mall of America in Bloomington, MN. The cupcake measured one foot by two feet and weighed in at 150.7lb. Filled with fudge and topped with SpongeBob yellow icing, the cake contained 1500 servings.

The giant cupcake was made as part of a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Nickelodeon character SpongeBob SquarePants held at Mall of America’s Nickelodeon Universe. The creators of the record breaking cupcake is DecoPac, which is promoted as “the world’s largest cake decoration supplier and marketer.”

Can our readers help with a suggestion for two clowns in need of giant cupcake?

I am hoping you can help me. My wife and I are professional clowns and we have a purple golf cart. I am Jelly Bean and she is Kupkake. I am trying to find a BIG rubber/foam cupkake to put on the roof of our golf cart for parade. Do you have any idea where I can get one. Thank you very much.

If you are in the New York City area, Baked by Melissa is running a unique and fun cupcake photography contest.  Here are the rules:

Pick up some cupcakes, and grab your cameras because Baked by Melissa is holding a photography contest!

We’re looking for some creative takes on cupcake photography (with Baked by Melissa cupcakes, of course!)

Place our cupcakes in obscure locations. Photograph an interesting subject taking a bite. Or just use your imagination because anything goes!

Photos may be used in one of our new stores, in our marketing material,at one of our upcoming events, on our website, etc.

Winners will be selected, on Aug 15, 2009, and announced on Aug 30, 2009.

The prizes are well worth your time as well:

First Prize – $500 and 100 free cupcakes

Second Prize – $250 and 100 free cupcakes

Third Prize – $150 and 100 free cupcakes

7 runner ups will each receive 100 free cupcakes

Official rules at BakedByMelissa.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold!  The mother of all cupcakes.  Measuring 1.25 m by 1.2 m (4.1 feet by 3.9 feet) and weighing in at 150kg (330 pounds).  This cupcake was painstakingly baked and assembled with 50 hours worth of labor by Michelle Wibowo from Michellcakes.co.uk.  Although this cake is a wonder to behold, I can’t imagine it being a wonder to taste!  50 hours of assembly can ruin the moistness and texture of any cupcake.  More details about the event and opinions about the cupcake at the guardian.co.uk.

Unfortunately, it seems like this giant cupcake may not meet the Guinness World Record qualifications which require that the entire cupcake be baked in one piece.  This quote from the Guardian confirms this:

Michelle said it took her five days to complete her masterpiece. “I used easily over 50kgs of sugar. I dread to think how many calories it has.” For want of an oven large enough, she whipped up batches and batches of smaller sponges and then layered and carved them into a cupcake shape. “The decorating is the fun part. The more icing the better.”

Following on the heels of this British story, an announcement by the Mall of America that they will be displaying a 100 lb cupcake with judges from Guinesss book of world records.   A mere 1/3 of its British counterpart in weight and size, this US cupcake seems poised to officially take the record.  It has already been announced that after the showing at the Mall of America, this 100 lb cupcake, all 131,000 calories, will be shipped to a local hog farm for consumption and digestion.

I have been informed from Sarah Voigt that this plus-sized cupcake will be presented on a tower that will hold 2,500 regular cupcakes.  Additionally, 4,000 FREE cupcakes will be given away during the 10th anniversary celebration of SpongeBob Squarepants.  If I were in the area, I would make some time to check out this fun spectacle.

The owner of Sweet City Cupcakes in Kansas City has tattoed her logo on her arms.  Talk about dedication to her craft!

Thanks to Libby for pointing these highly customizable cupcake kicks available at Zazzle.com.  With over a hundred designs of shoes to choose from, you are bound to find something suitable for a special occasion.  What blew my mind was that each shoe design can be personalized and customized.  You can choose your own personal colors for the stitching, midsole, lining, upper binding, insole binding, and more!  This is taking a step above other cupcake shoes.

Some cupcake themed products that our readers have graciously pointed out:

Stephanie from from freshvintage pointed out these adorable cupcake hotpants and cupcake panties.

Georgina from dollymixx is selling these adorable cupcake charms and cupcake necklace.

April, whose daughter’s nickname is “cake” found this gem of a cupcake necklace on Amazon.  Of cours they had a cupcake-themed birthday party for her first birthday!  Happy Birthday!

I and many others await the countdown to midnight in eager anticipation of the new Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  I purchased my tickets already for the special midnight showing, and I look forward to bringing my camera and catching some true fans dressed up for opening night.  In the mean time, I found some Harry Potter inspired cupcakes to pass the time.