Mommin' It Up!

May 2, 2012May 1, 2012

Pin for the Wednesday: Cute Frog Cupcakes

It’s Wednesday! And since I’ve been soooo crazy getting ready to get on a plane with Emily to go to Miami for Mom 2.0 Summit thanks to Lands’ End, I haven’t tried any new pins this week. OH WAIT! Yes, I did actually, but it was a GIANT FAIL. I’ll save that one for our opposite-PinFTW that we are sure to have one Wednesday! But for a winner, here’s one I did awhile back to celebrate Leap Day with my kids. Cute frog cupcakes! Get it? ‘Cause frogs LEAP! Here’s the original pin:

And here’s how mine turned out:

I know, I know, they’re not as cute as the original, but I hate coloring icing, so I used white icing and dipped the cupcake in green sprinkles. For the eyes I used white York Peppermint Patty Pieces (like Reese’s Pieces) and I used black gel icing for the eyeballs and mouth.

My children were duly impressed, and we had fun making them! They decorated their own.

Show us what you GOT! Do you have Pinterest prowess?? Link up below, or if you don’t have a blog, leave a comment. Just pretty please follow our rules:

1) In your post, please link to your original source – the pin you got the idea from.

2) Make sure and link back to our original Pin For the Wednesdays Post here at Mommin’ It Up! (please!)

3) In the Mr. Linky below, leave a direct link to your Pin FTWednesdays post, not to your main website.

4) Totally optional – grab our cute #PinFTW button! The code box is over there in our sidebar.

Happy pinning!!

April 4, 2012

Pin for the Wednesdays: Star Wars Cupcakes

So, Monday was Sam’s fourth birthday. In an effort to keep things simple, I decided that his “birthday party” would consist of cake and ice cream at our house. He wanted another Star Wars cake, and for some reason, instead of just being smart and ordering one, I decided to make it.

I blame Pinterest.

Last week I pinned this, and I thought I could try to make cupcakes like these.

Except there weren’t exactly any directions. (Note to pinners: pinning a picture from flickr? Not helpful.) That meant I was on my own.

The lightsabers were obviously fondant, but because I had never worked with fondant before and I had had luck with pretzel lightsabers last year, I decided to go with a mini-version of those.

But I’ll get back to the lightsabers in a minute.

Sam wanted chocolate cupcakes, so I went searching for a recipe. (Andy pointed out that there are good ones to be found on the backs of both Betty Crocker and Hines boxes, but I like to make life hard so I didn’t listen.) I went with this one, from Annie’s Eats. I also used her buttercream frosting recipe.

I am (clearly) not the best cupcake decorator in the world, but I thought they were pretty cute.

So, back to the lightsabers. As it turned out, I forgot to buy pretzels, so I decided to go with fondant after all. I used this recipe for easy marshmallow fondant.

It was a complete disaster. I’m 100% sure it was user error and not a faulty recipe, but it didn’t work at all.

So, I was back to the pretzels, but I was running out of time. I took a short cut and used melted chocolate chips for the handles, which didn’t harden quickly the way the candy melts do, and so they were super messy. Had I not been in such a hurry, I think they really could have been cute.

So, take aways from this post:
— Use candy melts, not chocolate chips.
— Don’t pin from Flickr.
— Call Cortney and Luanne when in need of Star Wars-themed (or any other) birthday baked goods.

Well that was certainly a long-winded way to get to the point – your posts with your pins!

There are just a couple of rules:

1) In your post, please link to your original source – the pin you got the idea from.

2) Make sure and link back to our original Pin For the Wednesdays Post here at Mommin’ It Up!

3) In the Mr. Linky below, leave a direct link to your Pin FTWednesdays post, not to your main website.

4) Totally optional – grab our cute #PinFTW button! The code box is over there in our sidebar.

No blog? Leave a comment!

Thanks for participating in Pin for the Wednesdays on Mommin It Up!

March 21, 2012March 21, 2012

Pin for the Wednesday – Rainbow Cupcakes

Welcome to the fourth week of Pin for the Wednesdays! We are having so much fun with it and we hope you are too.

We had friends over on St. Patrick’s Day, and I wanted to make things a fun for all the kids we had running around. Fortunately, Pinterest had tons of St. Patrick’s Day ideas and I was able to put a few of them into action.

My favorite was the rainbow cupcakes I made.

The original idea came from The Girl Who Ate Everything (I love this blog, btw). She’s got complete directions on her blog, but basically you take a white cake mix, divide it up, put food coloring in, and layer the colors in cupcake pans. It is super easy and turned out better than I expected! (I generally anticipate failure in cooking endeavors.)

Blurry picture, but aren’t they cute?

Here’s the inside – Sam licked off all the icing.

I thought they turned out really well, and kids and adults all liked them. (Possibly because I made Bailey’s buttercream for the adult version.)

What kind of Pinterest stuff have you done lately? Link up or leave a comment and share!

There are just a couple of rules:

1) In your post, please link to your original source – the pin you got the idea from.

2) Make sure and link back to our original Pin For the Wednesdays Post here at Mommin’ It Up!

3) In the Mr. Linky below, leave a direct link to your Pin FTWednesdays post, not to your main website.

4) Totally optional – grab our cute #PinFTW button! The code box is over there in our sidebar ————————–>

Thank you!!!

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