Cupcakes Wrappers You Can Actually Afford

I like to think that cupcakes have magical powers to make someone’s day a little better.  Whenever J. brings me home a french toast cupcake from our local cupcakery, it makes me a happy, happy wifey.

So when I saw these adorable laser cut wrappers from NY Cake, I was utterly smitten.  Just look!  Does this make you want to eat cupcakes, make cupcakes, and serve cupcakes at every wedding from now until forever?!  (Click on images for their tasty sources!)

Picket Fence Cupcake Wrapper

Ivy Vine Ivory Cupcake Wrapper

Black & White Polka Dots

Shades of Strawberry Pink Cupcake Wraps

Just one problem (or, as I prefer to say, challenge)… this are kind of pricey for a non-essential wedding item.  What’s a girl-on-a-budget to do?  Hit up some DIY cupcake wrapper tutorials, of course!

Click this image for Offbeat Bride's super-easy tutorial

Or for lace versions, check out the Weddingbee tutorial from jen and jakes wedding!

I’m definitely whipping these out for my next cupcake recipe!  Don’t you just love them?!

Priorities: Cake!

At this point in my recaps I’m going to skip around a bit, because after the toasts, we ate dinner but of course, there was lots of dancing between courses!  And after some of that dancing it was time for cake- and then more dancing of course!  Our wedding cake was so special to me… and seeing it all made to our specifications really made me smile!  There were three layers- the one J. chose (white cake with chocolate ganache and cannoli cream), the one I chose (red velvet and cream cheese frosting) and the top (chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and cannoli cream- J.’s ultimate).  Sadly, I never got to taste my red velvet… the staff brought me the white cake, and I barely ate any because I wanted to dance, so I didn’t ask for the red velvet.  But what little cake I did eat was SO good!  Le Petit Gateau did a great job with it!

And remember those cake toppers from my childhood Easter basket?  They didn’t actually end up on top of the cake, but rather, on a lower tier.  I’m not sure if it was on purpose or because the bakery didn’t realize I had a topper- but I couldn’t have been more thrilled with the placement, it looked great!

The actual cutting of the cake was all pomp and circumstance… the maitre’d kept making us do cheesy things while we tried not to roll our eyes.  Our focus was all cake- and when we finally got to taste it, it was delicious!  I know that eating one-year old frozen cake is a little bit of an odd custom, but I have to say, I’m looking forward to eating it again on our anniversary!

And how did we get here?  Checking In;  Practice Makes Perfect: The Rehearsal!; The Rehearsal Dinner!; The Rehearsal Dinner Slide Show; Girls Gone Wild!; Got Mah Hairs Did; The Guys Get Groomed; The Girls Get Glammed!; Get Me To The Church on Time!; The Moments of a Lifetime: Our Ceremony!; Love, Snow, and Portraits!; Mayhem and Cocktails!; These Are A Few of My Favorite Things (from the reception); Getting This Party Started; Here’s to Eternity!

A Compendium of DIY Pinwheel Love

I was recently reading a post about pinwheels over at $2000 Wedding, and ever since I’m been stark raving mad about paper pinwheels.  There is something so utterly romantic and playful about them!  And I feel like they have so much hidden versatility, not to mention their absolute customize-ability and cost-effectiveness!  So far, I’ve come up with 10 potential ways to use them, many of which could save you considerable cash:  

  

- Have guests waive them in lieu of bubbles, rice or birdseed when sending you off! 

- Incorporate them into floral centerpieces. 

- Or, forget the flowers altogether and use a bunch of pinwheels AS the centerpiece! 

- Write guests’ names and tables on them, and use for escort cards. 

- Top cupcakes with mini-pinwheels for a playful cake table. 

- Leave them on the kids table for the young and young at heart. 

- Tuck them into the napkins at each place setting for a whimsical favor. 

- Give them to your flower girls to carry during the ceremony instead of a basket. 

- Put your pinwheels on extra-long sticks and plant them in the ground for a festive aisle runner. 

- If you really want to get creative, you could even make your invite with instructions for how to turn them into pinwheels. 

  

Anyways… I clearly have no life… if you want to learn how to make your very own adorable pinwheels, the blogosphere is filled with great tutorials!  I’ve compiled some of my favorites to share but if you know of more, I’d love to hear them!  What would you do with pinwheels at a wedding?   

via Paper Source

via BHG

via Intimate Weddings

via Style Me Pretty

via Once Wed

 

My Homemade Valentine

Happy President’s Day everyone!  I hope you all have a lovely Valentine’s day yesterday!  We definitely did!  I know I’ve mentioned before that this month we’re on a “financial fast” which meant no gifts for V-day this year.  Frankly, for me, I find Valentine’s gifts to be overpriced and overrated.  So rather than spin our wheels and spend our money, we aimed for the small and thoughtful this year… and for me, that meant making dinner (spinach salad, flank steak pinwheels, wild mushroom risotto and fresh, lemony asparagus- my own creation!) and yes, it was a really, really good dinner! 

J. is a big lover of chocolate so I didn’t want to skip dessert.  But at the same time, I’m going through a particularly busy time at work (and an equally busy personal life) so I had to figure out something that wouldn’t take too long.  The solution came to me last week during my daily blog review when I was reminded of Bakerella’s recipe for cake balls!  Besides having a hilarious name, this recipe looked cute and simple so I decided to try my own spin on it- only I renamed them “cake truffles” so as to be taken slightly more seriously.

Bakerella’s recipe calls for red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting which I ADORE- but J. loves chocolate.  So I did a devil’s food cake with German chocolate icing (see Bakerella’s link above for instructions).  I broke my cardinal rule and used cake mix and store-bought icing, because I was short on time (bad Sarah, bad!)… but I do think you could easily do this completely homemade.  Then I melted a good-quality semi-sweet chocolate for the coating, and added some sprinkles in red, while and gold (a bridal shower gift).  The result?  See for yourself!

mmmmm, yummy chocolatey cake goodness

Now, I’m a big believer that presentation is EVERYTHING so of course I also had to at least attempt some sort of V-day appropriate packaging.  Since I didn’t want to spend any money, I ended up taking an old, standard gift box and turning it into a heart-shape.  To give you an idea of my approach, the below image shows (I hope) how I cut the box bottom.  I left the sides of the box intact and then shaped them to match the bottom, taping them into place when the new shape looked good to me.

Try to pretend this rectangle is a gift box.

Once my box was in the right shape I covered it with red and white papers.  Not being able to spend money, I downloaded these and these freebie printable papers, originally intended for dollhouses but perfect for my project.  I admit that it looks a little bit like a kindergartner did it, but I like to think it is kind of charming!

The box, pre-truffles

Once my box was ready, I decided to line it with waxed paper, to keep it nice for as long as possible.  I simply cut the waxed paper into a heart shape approximately 1 inch larger on all sides than the box, so the paper would line the sides of the box.  To get the paper to fit around the curves, I cut verticle slits into the paper’s edge.  Easy peasy.

Lined with wax paper

Next, I glued some red ribbon onto the bottom of the box, for tying later.  And yes, the ribbon was recycled, I didn’t buy that either.

With the ribbon...

And finally I filled the box with my creations.  Voila!

Just add truffles!

Before tying the bow, I added another layer of heart-shaped waxed paper, and then that was it!  A cute, homemade Valentine using groceries and freebies, something that still felt special despite the absence of big spending.  J. loved them!

A little more waxed paper, a bow, and we're in business!

I think this would make such a cute thank you gift for someone throwing a shower- or maybe even a groom’s gift.  As for me, I’ll be incorporating them into my traditional repertoire of holiday baking from now on!

How did you celebrate Valentine’s day?

Showered with Love! The Details…

I may have mentioned once or twice that the women in my life are amazing, but it bears repeating once more.  And here’s the main reason why- they are thoughtful, caring, and made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world yet again.  They also happen to be incredibly talented and creative, as you are soon to see.

The shower was held at Sayen Gardens in Hamilton, NJ, in a historic house that might just be the cutest house I’ve ever seen.

Continue reading »

Ribbons

Ever since J. and I tasted our cake, I’ve been thinking about what ribbon to use on the layers and base.  I’d like a warm, soft gold that doesn’t contrast too greatly with our ivory frosting, but beyond that, I have a lot of flexibility.  So I’ve been looking and here are my favorite contenders so far.  All images link to their source, by the way.

This is good, but a bit boring I think.

Continue reading »

Piece of Cake!

Yesterday, J. and I visited the bakery that is making our cake- Le Petit Gateau.  Out cake was included in the price for our reception, so fortunately all we had to do was go and taste and choose.  Stress free fun!  Of course, I came prepared with inspiration, the Martha Stewart Wedding Cakes Book (with key pages flagged) and my wedding planning scrapbook, and I brought our little cake topper dudes too.

At first, the very simplest designs appealed to me.  Especially ones topped with loads of the same ingredient- like sugar flower petals, flakes of coconut, or peaks of meringue.

So I was a little bit disappointed when the baker told me that my ideas were either outside my contract or wouldn’t hold up very well.  But then again, I really appreciated the honesty.  Goodness knows I don’t want a cake wreck on my hands!

Continue reading »

Pretty Birdies!

I am clearly on a crafty sharing kick this week, which is why I absolutely HAD to share with you all some photos of the cutest birds you’ve ever seen, made by Ann Wood. If you haven’t seen her blog, you definitely need to go there right now, because you will be addicted for life.  My friend H. used these as both wedding decor and cake toppers… and her coordinator actually had to tell guests not to shamelessly steal them mistakenly take them home!  Honestly, if I had thought about it I’d have probably tried to steal them myself! Aren’t they the best?

A Topper that Takes the Cake

J. and I will soon be tasting some cake from our bakery, Le Petit Gateau, and when we do we’ll also be making some decisions about what the cake will look like. We agreed early on that J. can choose what’s on the inside of the cake, so long as I get to choose what’s on the outside. I think that’s fair, right?

So one of the things I’ve been thinking about is how to top our cake! And I’ve had a really good time figuring this one out!

Um, does anyone else think this dude looks uncannily like J.? We couldn’t stop laughing when we saw it! We seriously considered whether we were willing to have these on top of our cake since, but in the end, we were unsure whether anyone else would think it was as funny as we do. We think its hilarious…

This next topper is from Bethany Love and I was pretty sure for a while that this was “the one.” But there’s just too much eye candy out there to choose too early so I kept thinking about it.

I also checked out all the vintage goodies on ebay and various antique websites, for example, this delicate topper dates from around the 1930’s. If we had one of these heirlooms in the family I’d be all over it. We don’t have anything quite this old in our family, but while talking to my mom about my oh-so-serious cake topper dilemma, she had a great idea!

When I was little, my parents spent a lot of time buying and selling antiques, and when I was along for the ride, I started collecting antique dolls as a way to entertain myself. Over the years, my mom and I amassed quite a collection, which we’ve since edited down, but I still have my favorite dolls. I get made fun of a LOT for this. Anyhow, one year when I was maybe nine, she put these little guys in my Easter basket.

Are they not the cutest thing ever? They are carnival dolls, a bride and groom from the 1930’s made in the Kewpie style. They are extraordinarily fragile, made of thin celluloid and covered in tissue and fabric- materials that were delicate 80 years ago, and are wispy now. I was so excited when my mom suggested I use them that my heart skipped a beat! I’m going to have to figure out a way to get them on a stand of some sort so that they don’t get damaged and don’t tip over. And since celluloid will explode if too close to heat, I’m also going to have to remember to tell the baker, coordinator, and reception location about that small detail. But I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it!

How would you top a cake?