This time of year is the best cupcake hunting time. It seems that so many retailers pair Valentine’s Day and cupcakes and I love it! Here’s some of the sweet items I found yesterday in Target’s dollar section:

Cupcake socks, dry erase board, oven mitt and pot holder and cupcake erasers. They also had cupcake shirts for small dogs.

Facebook fan, Lindsey also found this cupcake bank at her Target.

I have also had Valentine cupcake sightings at Michael’s, Hobby Lobby and my favorite Kohl’s.

Kohl’s cupcake placemats, wreath, table runner and vinyl tablecloth.  These photos only show half of what they have available this year.   All are so sweet and so tempting! 

Please click on the comment area below and let us know about your cupcake sightings this week.  

Have you always wanted to make ‘WOW’ cupcakes but are not sure where to start?  Well Cupcake Envy now have the answer in their latest DVD which takes you through the entire process on how to make your own bauble cupcakes.  Actually it teaches you how to make sphere shaped cakelet  designs, which really means you will be able to make baubles, hand grenades, tennis balls, basket balls, planets and anything else that is round!

I just love these, though they are so good I would love to hang them on my Christmas tree… it seems a bit wrong to just, well… eat them!

If you are looking for the coolest winter cupcakes this year, look no further than Shereen’s Cakes and Bakes in the UK.  As you can tell with my liberal gushing I am blown away by these.  She has created cupcakes which are seriously ice cold ‘cool’ with snowboarders and skiers in this first set.  These vanilla cupcakes are completely edible as are her funky fondant snow dudes!

And very cute fun loving penguins in this second set.  These cupcakes incidentally won her the Tesco Cupcake Competition.  Seriously if I saw these cupcakes up against mine, I would just slide them back into my bag and walk away.  These penguins are amazing!

Santa Baby is one of my favorite Christmas songs to sing to and dance with. So when I found these Santa Baby Cupcake Toppers from The Gypsy Factory’s Etsy Shop I was singing extra verses of the song and dancing my lil’ cupcake shaped heart out!

Here are some more Christmas Cupcake items from The Gypsy Factory —

Red and White Stripe Christmas Cupcake Wrappers

Retro Peppermint Merry Christmas Cupcake Topper and Wrapper Set

Glam Elves Christmas Cupcake Toppers

These fondant cupcake toppers which have been crafted to look like Santa Claus’s face make decorating your cupcakes easy. For $15.00 you get a dozen fondant Santa’s handcrafted by Two Sugar Babies.  If you’re considering ordering these, hurry and place your order, because they are made-to-order they take extra time and there’s only two weeks until Christmas!

Check out these gorgeous photos! Keira’s Cakes is a small home-run business near London. Visit their website for even more cupcake beauty!

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How on earth would you celebrate an Art Gala at a Comic Book Store?

Jenny from Geek Sweets has the answer… with comic book cupcakes of course and these are fantastic.

Jenny has created so many different types of cupcake decorations from Flash lightning bolts to Spidermen, to Batman, to the Joker, to the characters from Watchmen!  Everything is here, including Superman in many different colors!

To check out all the individual cupcakes and get the inspiration you need for your next superhero cupcake party, check out her blog here.

I love this super easy DIY cupcake topper idea.  One Charming Party call’s them Jackson Pollock cupcake toppers since they resemble the abstract art created by Pollock.  All you need to create these simple decorations are candy melts, ziplock or disposable pasty bags, and wax paper.  Then follow the three steps below to create your own unique toppers.

1. Melt candy melts in a glass bowl in the microwave. Spoon the melted candy melts into disposable frosting  bags.

2. Cut the tip of the bag a tiny bit to allow the melted candy melts to get out.

3. Make random paint splatters onto wax paper. Let them cool. Place on top of your cupcakes.

Are you tired of flicking through hundreds of different Christmas cupcakes after doing your Google Image search, finding images you love, but no instructions?

Well rest your weary mouse and check out this one site.  It is of course the Wilton Cupcake site, and by clicking on this link here you will find loads of Christmas Cupcake ideas along with full instructions and lists of the equipment you need to make them.

As a baker I am constantly checking out this site as a way to learn new techniques and find new and interesting ideas.  This year I am loving the angels!  I have just got to buy myself that pan.. early christmas present perhaps?

Click on the images to go directly to the instructions for that cupcake.

Does anyone on your list need a Cupcake Dispenser? Available from Amazon for $15.93, this cute contraption allows you to use three different colored sprinkles and comes with stencils to make cool designs!

There are many ways to create a cupcake christmas tree, including using cupcakes on a christmas tree cupcake stand, or what I am talking about today, and that is decorating your regular every Christmas fake or real Christmas tree with cupcake decorations!

Start with heaps of tinsel, and then put up your cupcake Christmas lights if you can get them, if not go with candy cane lights, or failing that normal lights.  Then decorate all the rest of your tree with cupcake based ornaments!  Here are some cupcake decoration ideas:

• Glass Cupcake Ornaments
• Faux Cupcakes (any design, just add a little ribbon)
• Cupcake pictures adhered to pegs
• Cupcake pictures hung by ribbons
• Felt Cupcake Pouches
• Cupcake wrapper streamers (and don’t limit yourself to the Christmas tree!!!)

Happy decorating!

Oh, and one word of caution, ensure your cupcake lights are safe to use with paper if you are making paper streamers as you don’t want a cupcake bonfire!

Tis’ the season for baking and I have found just the right item to start off your Christmas baking.

Christmas Cupcake Kit found at Patina

What will you be baking for the season?

This Winter Wonderland Holiday Cupcake Decorating Kit includes everything you need to decorate 24 cupcakes.  The kit comes with 24 liners, 12 of which are silver and the other 12 are green and white carnival stripe.  For decorations, the kit has old-school reindeer, sparkling blue sugar, and white snowflakes, sugar buttons and ribbon flags.  The kit costs $12.95 and is available from BakeLab.

In the past I have posted about Amy Atlas Events and expressed how much I love everything that Amy Atlas creates.  Over the summer we shared with you a DIY tutorial for cupcake liner garland.  Now, this past week Atlas shared her own tutorial for cupcake wrapper garland.  The very easy directions for this fun decoration are included on her website.

Fondant snowflakes!

Now, why haven’t I thought of that?

I discovered these gorgeous photos at Maison Cupcake, a fun and fantastic blog about baking, desserts and party food!

Ahhhhhaarrggh mee hearties!  Der’ is treasure to be found in Debbie Does Cakes Flickr photo stream, that is to be sure!  She creates some of the most amazing cakes and cupcakes that I have ever seen and these gold laden pirate cupcakes are no different!  I love the mix of skulls, flags, maps, rum and best of all the treasure chests!

Oh and I love her vomiting pumpkin cake!  Tis sensational!

Do you ever wonder how people make those sensational fondant creations to sit on top of their cakes and cupcakes?  Well wonder no longer you too can make a cheeky cute fondant monkey just like this one here!  How?  Well Cake Fixation last month posted a detailed step-by-step how to, with loads of photos to show you exactly how to make your own!

It looks so super easy thanks to Stephanie’s instructions!  Let us know if you have a go at trying to make this little monkey girl!

Always in search of new cupcake wrappers I was excited to come across The Cupcake Wrapper Co. This company offers wrappers with varying designs in yellow, pink, green, blue, and red hues. Each packet includes 12 wrappers for $14.95.  To top it off, the site offers a few additional cupcake decorating items, such as cupcake topper balloons.

I really like the red circus wrappers and the bunny tree wrapper.  I personally like decorative wrappers because it means your frosting job can be more simple.

The recent movie Despicable Me was all the rage here in the last school holidays and it was hard for anyone in our family not to absolutely adore it.  I totally loved the little girls Margo, Edith and Agnes, and Gru was fantastic in his evil lovable way!  But for the kids, the best thing of all was of course the clumsy, funny and always hard working Minions that won their hearts!

So what to create for a kids birthday party?  Well why not a super cool birthday cake of one of the girls, and surround it with many many Minion cupcakes!

Cococake Cupcakes did just that recently for one of their customers, and I adored how they came out!

Lately I have been trying to be crafty and these googley eye cupcake toppers are a great next project.  I found these DIY toppers on Modern Kiddo although they were originally created by Scrumdilly-Do.  Grab your materials which include:
* toothpicks
* scrap paper, printed paper, newspaper
* paint of your choice
* paint brushes
* cup o water
* glue and/or glue stick
* various paper punches or scissors
* googly eyes
* markers (optional)

Then head over to Modern Kiddo for the tutorial!

The latest issue of the Hello, Cupcake What’s News letter features a Bootiful Mummy Cupcakes! The cupcakes which are by the creators of the Hello, Cupcake and What’s New Cupcake Cookbooks, have marshmallows hidden under red fruit roll-ups which looks like blood under the melted frosting.  Gory, I know but it’s Halloween after all! For tips on how to make the mummy visit the candy corner and for help with the spider webs seen in the image below check out the technique of the month and for directions look below!

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Cupcakes go with everything, including the theatre.  Sylvia is a comedic play about a dog and the quarrelsome couple who adopts her.  It is written by A.R. Gurney and was first performed in 1995 at the Manhattan Theatre Club.  Sarah Jessica Parker played the part of Sylvia.  That’s right — the dog. 

The play is still popular in theatres all over the country, and Mariel, an ATC reader, just submitted this fabulous photo of her Sylvia cupcakes, which she made to celebrate a production near her!

She cut the pawprints out of colored gumpaste, then rolled white gumpaste into little balls, which she flattened and attached with royal icing.  To make the “dogtags,” she tied scrapbook adornments into a bow, and then cut one side of the bow!  Isn’t she clever?   Thanks for sharing, Mariel!

Pizzazzerie recently had a Cupcake Skewer Contest, the deadline for which has since past, but designs are still relevant to the Halloween season. The winning cupcake skewers were Black Magic Cupcakes, created by Sweet Cheeks Tasty Treats.

While she did not win the contest, The Decorated Cookie still created bright, festive Halloween cupcakes that impressed me!  Below are The Decorated Cookie’s instructions for creating Halloween cupcake skewers but for

additional directions, Pizzazzerie has a How to Make Cupcake Skewers post.

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Be the hit of any Halloween party with these cupcake sleeves from Roundabout Sleeves!  Transform your cupcakes into (possibly scary) works of art in about 2 seconds!  One dozen sleeves costs $8.99.  Your cupcakes will be almost too cool to eat!

I find the images of Belle and Boo to be absolutely adorable.  One of my favorites is the Happy Halloween print where Boo is inside a Jack-O-Lantern and Belle is dressed up like a cat.  I was excited when I came across these Halloween Parade Cupcake Wrappers available on their Etsy site. Ten decorative wrappers, which are not meant to be baked in, come in a pack for $9.50.  Belle and Boo also sells matching invitations.