Nihao, Cupcake!

Red Chinese New Year Dragon Cupcake Cake with Chocolate Pretzel Wings

My youngest son's birthday landed on Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) this year. And as you may know, it is the year of the dragon, so what cake is more fitting than a red (color of celebration) Chinese dragon cupcake cake for the occasion?

My middle son was born in the year of the dragon, so this is his year too! Quite a serendipitously special year for our family since we are living in China, to boot! And this is supposed to be the best year of the dragon as well as the best year of the 144 year cycle (12 cycles of 12 years). Not bad!! 

I'm especially proud of those chocolate pretzel wings that I came up with an hour before we had to leave the house to take the dragon to school. My original idea was a horrible failure, in fact, I knew as soon as I opened the package of the fruit tape that it wouldn't work, so I didn't even try. When in doubt, turn to melting chocolate - it is so easy and you can make anything you want. 

I drew the outline and bones of one wing, put the drawing under waxed paper, I traced the three bone areas with a thick line of chocolate and then placed the pretzel sticks down, Then I filled in the wings and coverd the handle pretzels with a lot of chocolate. Then I flipped the drawing over, traced it through to the other side, followed the same steps as above to make a new wing that was the mirror image of the first wing. Then I placed them in the refrigerator for around 30 minutes and they were done! I did have to saw off the ends with a serrated knife because the handles were too long to stick into a cupcake. But otherwise they worked perfectly! PHEW!

And here he is with the goodie bags he made for his class. (I'll post more details about these in a future post.) That is his drawing of a dragon dance complete with lanterns. THe back side says Happy New Year inside a latern surrounded by fire works. I did not coach him on these drawings but based on the amount of detail they include, there is no mistake he has spent half of his seven years in China!

There's nothing like making a cool dragon cupcake cake (special cakes made by mom are one of our family traditions) and putting together some homemade goodie bags to make a little one smile! It is all about the simple things, isn't it?

I'm linking up at Simple Things Sunday today.

Art Journaling & Project Life {Weekly Photos [Nov 19 - 25]}

I am so excited that I have finally been able to make progress on my Project Life album so I am starting off with a photo of my completed page! My photos finally arrived. I hadn't inserted photos since mid-July. Now I am working on adding the journaling and the ephemera. That is the time consuming part.

 

I had fun with water colors on several of my journaling cards to highlight certain words. And as you can see above, I did some stamping and watercolors on the back side of a journaling card. It's all the influence of my art journaling. It is so much fun I don't want to stop playing.

 

Here's my DIY Date Card/Weekly Title Card. I cut a piece of patterned paper down to 4x6 (I used a 6x6 paper pad) and swiped a few coats of gesso on it to make a space for stamping the week's dates. I let the gesso dry between coats.

I bought Project Life in 2010 and never finished my album. I tried again this year using the same kit and half way through I decided there were a lot of the journaling cards that I didn't want to use because I didn't like the colors. 

I sorted through all my journaling cards and set aside all the ones I didn't want to use. The rest I divided into color families so I could use them all on one page to bring a sense of unity and flow to each two-page layout. WIth the remaining cards, I have been using the backside and adding my own personal touches to those. Nothing fancy.

I plan to use 

Project Life Core Kit - Amber Edition, the DIY date cards, & the Grid Journaling Cards to finish up my 2009 album & make my 2012 album. I may also buy the Clemntine Core Kit to mix it up a bit. Those two kits and some of my own personal touches using the Grid Journaling Cards, may even get me through 2013! We'll see.

But what I can't wait for are the Signature Black & White albums and the Amber album. I love that beautiful orange!

Before we get to the photos, here is what I bought on Black Friday (in addition to the Amber Core Kit:

Photo Pocket Pages - Big Pack of Design A (60 Pages)

Big Envelope Pages

 

6 x 12 Page Protectors

Not a Project Life/Becky Higgins brand product, but a totally great addition to a PL album. I can't wait to use these:

Photo Protector - 6 x 12 for 4x6 Photos - Horizontal 10 pk

Before black Friday, I had two boxes of these in my cart:

100 Journaling Cards - 3" x 4" with Grid Design

but they are now sold out! Hopefully, they will have them back in stock in time for me to get a couple extra boxes before I return to China. Fingers crossed! 

 

WEEK IN PHOTOS

Saturday, November 19

Braden wanted to make a scrapbook page after he saw me create this one, so I let him pick out a couple of photos, some supplies and go to town. It turned out great!

 

 

 

Sunday, November 20

We went to Ikea to find a coffee table once and for all. The only one we were interested in buying was sold out! They won't be back in stock until January so we still don't have one. Our Ikea tradition is ice cream cones after typically one+ hour of shopping. I pass, though, since I don't like vanilla ice cream. They are only one kuai each (approx 15 cents).

Monday, Nov 21, Tues, Nov 22 & Wed, Nov 23 - NO PHOTOS: it was a rough week and I was so focused on other things that I completely forgot! I will insert significant emails and maybe some news stories of the week. Paul was in Singapore.

 

Thursday, November 24

Nicholas talked us into going out for dinner on the "real" Thanksgiving even though it isn't a holiday in China. We found Grandma's Kitchen and walked there through the embassy area adjacent to our apartment building.

 

Photo #2

It was fun to go out. (The table next to us was full of people from Major League Baseball [MLB] working in Beijing.) The food was not so good, but the dessert (I had apple pie) was pretty good. Next year we'll try NOLA instead!

 

 

Friday, November 25

Nicholas' poster advertising the Upper Elementary Winter Concert was featured in November's Friday assembly.

 

Photo #2: The night before our big Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. I spent the day food shopping and baking pies and sweet potato casserole. The sweet potato casserole is the one thing non-Americans have never had yet think is delish! I need to double the recipe next time so we will actually have leftovers. Another guest had never had pumpkin pie and raved that it was delicious. Perhaps he is hinting at something... too bad they don't sell frozen crust over here or I'd think of making him one of his very own!

 

Now for a glimpse at my latest art journal pages. I hope to keep this up even after my class is over on Thursday. :(

 To See everything PROJECT LIFE on my blog, click here.

PROJECT LIFE INSPIRATION FOUND ON THE WEB

A beautiful album documented on a blog in Finland.

 

ART JOURNAL UPDATE

My internet is has been annoyingly slow on some days so it makes watching the videos for my class almost impossible to watch. What I usually do, is load the page, click play on the video, walk away and return a few hours later after the entire thing has played through once, then I replay it.

 

On really bad days, the internet is so slow that I lose all of my pages even the ones that alreay have videos ready to play. So, on those days, I skip watching videos. This happened alot last week so I've skipped over one of our two page spreads and moved on to the next assignment. I'll go back to it when class is over. I have a thing about 'keeping up with class.'

Besides, once I saw what we were going to be doing, I could hardly wait to get started. This totally reminds me of doodling I did as a kid. I'm not exactly sure at what age. The huge difference, though is the addition of water colors. I've never worked with water colors before. They make the doodles look sooooo cool! I love this! 

It couldn't be more fun.

 

It was so much fun that I forgot to write my journal entry for the day. I'll do that when I am done posting! Oops! 

 

Some details photos...

 

 

 

 

 

To see my ART JOURNAL posts, click here.

 

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to link me to your blog if you are posting completed Project Life layouts. Or give me your best Project Life tip. I'd love to hear.

Or do you art journal and blog about it? I want to stop by and see. Please link me to your blog so I can be inspired!

Hello, Cupcake! BLOG: Oh, My! Cupcakes look even better!

via blog.hellocupcakebook.com

The authors of my two favorite cupcake books (Hello, Cupcake! & What's New, Cupcake! are coming out with a new book. I couldn't be more excited. And this time the are expanding into cookies and pies.

 

Today is 11.11.11. I'm out taking photos for www.onedayonearth.org, are you? If not, why not sign up and join along? It is a really cool project. I'll be posting my photos sometime next week.

An American Favorite Made into A Cupcake

via www.hellocupcakebook.com

Some of my favorite emails I get are from the Hello, Cupcake! Newsletter by the authors of my two favorite cupcake books, Hello, Cupcake! and What's New Cupcake.

The authors come up with a new cupcake each month and send it to my inbox. Here is November's design: S'more cupcakes. Pretty cute and looks yummy. The next best thing to a campfire.

The Best Monster Cupcakes I Have Ever Made!

It was my son's birthday on Friday. One of our traditions is that I make a fun cake or cupcakes in the theme of the birthday child's choice. Nicholas insisted on these monster cupcakes. I had to alter them from the original version which used far too much frosting and have proven difficult too transport. I stayed up past his bedtime Thursday night decorating. He came into my room early Friday morning waking me up saying, "Mom, those are the BEST monster cupcakes you have ever made!" What could make a mom happier than that?! 

He repeated the same sentiment multiple times throughout the day and into Saturday. I'm so glad he appreciates my efforts. I do find it humorous that they are only the second monster cupcakes I have ever made, but I'll take an enthusiastic compliment like that whenever I can get one!

It's the SIMPLE THINGS like a heartfelt compliment from a newly eleven year old boy that warms my heart and makes me smile!

Here is Nicholas with the 18 friends he invited to his birthday party at school.

And this is the cupcake cake I made for his birthday party on Saturday! He told me he specifically chose this design because he thought it would be easy for me to do and he knew I had been working hard on the last minute (less than 2 days, but that is a story for another blog post) party. He has his moments, but most of the time I couldn't ask for a sweeter, more thoughtful son!

Happy Birthday!

To see anything about FUN CAKES & CUPCAKES on my blog, click here.

{A Menagerie of Halloween Cupcakes}

Back to cupcakes. My children's school had International Day on Friday. Since Halloween is an American holiday, I thought what better cupcakes to make than a menagerie of Halloween cupcakes! Originally the plan was to make an American flag-esque cupcake cake, but at the last minute I talked my son into these cuties. I get bored easily and would rather make five different types of designs rather than one big design.

I think these are all new designs for us. Many of them are all over the internet but we've never made them before. These were all easy to make and of course are really cute!

I love the little details. Just adding eight little legs on to this mini M&M gives this cupcake a personality.

This Peeking Monster Cupcake is so easy and so cute! He is good for those cupcakes that don't come all the way up to the top of the cupcake liner. Fill that space with frosting and push in as many candy corn as can fit, add two Necco wafers for eyes and with a dab of vanilla icing stick on two mini M&Ms and add pupils with chocolate frosting. Couldn't be easier or cuter!

 

Another super easy and cute cupcake. The teeth are Tic Tacs and the eyes are mini M&Ms. Super easy!

 

These spider cupcakes are a little tricker but with a few tips, they are easy too. To add the black licorice legs, I took a 'naked cupcake' and with a toothpick, poked four holes in each side of the cupcake. With a simple toothpick hole, the licorice laces slid right in. I then frosted the cupcake with chocolate icing, dipped them in chocolate jimmies (sprinkles) and then added red mini M&Ms for eyes. So cute and easy too. No special talent needed!

 

I only had a few cupcakes left to decorate. I was tired of decorating mummies, green monsters and spiders, so I started dotting a cupcake with white spots, added some mini M&Ms and thought they looked kind of like eyes, so added the pupils and ended up with a alien-esque multi-eyed cupcake. Or it could just be colorfully decorated!

 

This one looks even more like eyeballs and it is even easier. It is just white dots of icing topped with a dot of chocolate. A little bit cute and a little bit creepy.

 

Another fun batch of cupcakes made! I'll be doing the same thing next week because it is my son's birthday and I'll be bringing cupcakes for his class. He wants me to make monster cupcakes that look furry and have big bulbous eyeballs (lollipops with gummy candy rings around them) - tune in same time next week to see how those turn out!

This is the 28th post in a 31 Day series: Creative Inspiration. Check out all the posts here.

To see anything about FUN CAKES & CUPCAKES on my blog, click here.

Even more Halloween cupcake ideas in my photostream on Flickr.com.

31 DAYS of INSPIRATION: Day 23 {Halloween Cupcakes}

via www.marthastewart.com

This is the 23rd post in a 31 Day series: Creative Inspiration. Check out all the posts here.

These adorable bats are found at MarthaStewart.com.

And more cute and easy Halloween Cupcake ideas from MarthaStewart.com:

via www.marthastewart.com

 

Here is a list of 25 ideas for Halloween themed cupcakes at partycupcakeideas.com.

via partycupcakeideas.com

 

via 3.bp.blogspot.com

These spider cupcakes are super cute and couldnt' be easier. Just remember to give your spider eight legs or your cupcakes will be mere insects!

 

These are the cutest Eyeball Cupcakes I've seen in a long time. I like the added dimension of the donut holes. If you don't want to get this complicated, you can just use candy and frosting and skip the donut holes. I found thme at BHG.com where they have a ton of other very cute Halloween cupcake ideas.

 

Here are a bunch of cupcakes I made a couple of years ago for Halloween. There are three-eyed aliens with pretzel stick antennae cupcakes, chocolate & candy bug cupcakes, blood shot eyeball cupcakes, chocolate black cat cupcakes, white chocolate ghost & skull cupcakes, jack-o-lantern faces made from chocolate and chocolate bat cupcakes. These are all quite simple to make with ordinary ingredients and candy.

For ideas on how to make the toppers made from chocolate, go to this post on making chocolate toppers for cupcakes.

 

via vernellc.typepad.com

I love these gravestones from Vernell's blog: Ole Talk. What a cute idea - effective, yet simple. She also has a link to a recipe for pumpkin cupcakes - yum!

I have to make some American-style cupcakes for Friday's International Day and then Monster birthday cupcakes the week after. Any good ideas?

To see anything about FUN CAKES & CUPCAKES on my blog, click here.

 And to find out what Halloween cupcakes I ended up making this year for Halloween 2011, click here.

 

Even more Halloween cupcake ideas in my photostream on Flickr.com.

31 DAYS of CREATIVE INSPIRATION:: Day 17 {More Cupcakes}

This is the 17th post in a 31 Day series: Creative Inspiration. Check out all the posts here.

These are some more cupcakes that I designed all on my own. I LOVE snowflakes. Every winter, I re-learn how to make really cool paper snowflakes and paste them all over my living room window. I am always trying to figure out how to make yet another interesting snowflake shape so I am always paying attention to different types of snowflakes.

All this time making paper snowflakes led to my idea for these cupcakes. All I did was draw these basic snowflake shapes on a piece of paper and place a piece of wax paper over it. I melted some white chocolate chips, placed them in a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off and then traced over my pencil drawings. 

When finished making all of the snowflakes, I placed them in the refrigerator to harden. Frosted each cupcake with blue icing, dipped them each in blue decorator sugar making sure each cupcake was fully covered and when the snowflakes were finished hardening, I topped each cupcake with one to three snowflakes. Aren't they pretty? You could even add decorative pearls at the ends of each snowflake line. OR you could add decorator sugar to the snowflakes before placing them in the refrigerator to dry. 

So many possibilities.

If you want more detailed instructions on how to make similar chocolate toppers for your cupcakes, check out my guest blog post from a few months ago on Vernell's blog. I shared my tips for making chocolate designs to decorate cupcakes. Please go over & check it out!

To see anything about FUN CAKES & CUPCAKES on my blog, click here.

Tomorrow we will play around with some paper folding fun that can be used on your scrapbook pages.

Adorable Halloween Cupcake Idea - AllYou.com

via www.allyou.com

Look what I found! How cute are these Halloween Cupcakes?! They are cute enough for other occasions too. What about a picnic, summertime birthday party (think boys, bugs, dirt, magnifying glasses and butterfly nets, maybe even a bug house) or a bake sale at school? Just change up the colored sugar and the icing and make them match the theme of your occasion. Maybe yellows & reds or what about blue and orange. Just a few little changes and these can be very versatile cupcake designs.

For all things CUPCAKE on this blog, click here.

 And to find out what Halloween cupcakes I ended up making this year for Halloween 2011, click here.

Even more Halloween cupcake ideas in my photostream on Flickr.com.

31 Days of Creative Inspiration: Day 1 {Design Your Own Cupcake}

Welcome to my blog! I'm so glad you've decided to join me for:

Day 1 of 31 Days of Creative Inspiration.

As I explained in this post, during the next 31 Days, I plan to inspire you with photography (specifically 'everyday photojournalism' & travel), cake and cupcake decorating, crafts, favorite recipes and personal stories all meant to inspire you!

Feel free to grab the code for my blog button over there on the right side of my blog.

 

Day 1 is all about

{Creating Your Own Cupcake Design}. 

*I hope by sharing with you my process of making my own cupcake design, you will be inspired to try your own.*

I often decorate cakes and cupcakes. But I usually get my ideas from books or online. 

A few weeks ago, however, I came up with a design of my very own. I needed cupcakes to send with my husband to his office for the Moon Festival. There is a legend about a rabbit who ends up in the moon. I wanted to create 'Rabbit in the Moon' cupcakes, so I searched for a rabbit I could make out of simple shapes.

For me the key is KEEPING IT SIMPLE.

This is the sketch that I made, using mainly circles.

The next step was making the moon to place the rabbit inside.

I frosted each cupcake with white frosting and then placed a circle cookie cutter, a little smaller than the top of the cupcake right on top of the cupcake to use as a stencil.

I sprinkled yellow sugar sprinkles directly inside and even flipped the cupcake upside down to get rid of the extra ones. The circle cooking cutter miraculously stayed in place. What could be simpler?

After much practice trying to reproduce a perfectly proportionate bunny body using frosting, I discovered a few things to make it come out right.

Start with the ears first. Since this is a picture of the back of the bunny, the ears would be furthest away and therefore on the 'bottom' of the picture.

Next would be the head.

To get perfect circles and a bunny that looks properly in proportion, I like to use stencils or guides when possible. I found that the frosting coupler from one of the many sets I have was perfect to mark my bunny head and body.

The coupler I had was made up of two perfectly sized circles. The smaller circle, I used as the stencil for the head. After I stamped that circle and filled it in with frosting, I flipped the coupler and used the larger circle as the stencil (or stamp) for the body.

I used just a couple of light marks in the sugar crystals as my guide to make the perfect circles. When I tried it without the guides, my circles were more like ovals and didn't have the right proportions for good looking bunny bodies. I'm just not that precise on my own. But there's no shame in that, is there?

And the final touch was an upside down white chocolate chip for the tail. I put it right on the little pointy thing that comes when the frosting bag is moved away. Bunnies don't have pointy things on their backs, but they do have white chocolate tails! 

The best part of the white chocolate chips is that it adds dimension.

Now I created these cupcakes for the Moon Festival here in China (click here to see what other things we did to celebrate the moon festival), but there is no reason you couldn't use these for Easter or any other spring celebration. Don't be afraid to change the color of the moon and make it an Easter egg or just a cheerful circular background. (More spring and Easter cupcake ideas here.)

For all things CUPCAKE on this blog, click here.

Hopefully, you have seen how SIMPLE it can be to come up with your own cupcake decoration with a little thought and experimentation. Let me know if you decide to create your own design or even if you replicate this one, I'd love to see how they turn out!

Thanks for stopping by on Day 1 of 31 Days of Creative Inspiration. Tomorrow will be all about story telling.

Mid Autumn Festival in Beijing: 10 Favorite Memories on the 10th

Right now in China the mid-Autumn Festival is in full swing. In fact, Monday is a holiday the kids will be home from school and my husband will be home from work. It is a traditional Chinese holiday but only in the last couple of years has the country started acknowledging it again.

It is an important family holiday and a symbol of the festival is the Moon. In fact, it is often called the Moon Festival. If families can't be together and they are feeling homesick, they look at the moon and know that no matter where in the world their loved one is, they are also looking at the same moon.

There is a legend that is associated with the holiday that ends with a rabbit going up to the moon and grinding medicine. The Chinese believe if you look up at the moon, you can see the outline of the rabbit. Look up at the full moon, the next time you are outside in the dark and see if you can see it.

It is customary to give friends and loved ones Mooncakes during this holiday time.

We have been taking full advantage of living here and have done as much as we can to learn about the festival.

Here are our top ten memories in photos of the holiday so far:

1) My son and I went to a mooncake making class and the chef who showed us what to do, made this rabbit out of mooncake dough just for my son.

2) Here are some mooncakes that my son made at our class. Two are filled with sweet red beans and two are filled with date paste. There are many types of mooncakes. Most that we see have a pastry like outside that is brown in color. These are made from a glutinous rice flour and usually baked. However, since we did not have an oven in our classroom, we steamed them. They were fun to make and looked pretty but the steaming made the outside a little hard and difficult to chew and swallow.

 

3) Moon Festival Rabbit Cupcakes - my husband wanted to give his staff a gift for the festival. But since they already receive so many mooncakes (kind of like our tradition of fruitcake in the States), he wanted to do something different. We knew the legend of the medicine grinding rabbit, so I came up with this cupcake design instead of mooncakes. It is supposed to be a rabbit inside a full moon. I'm not sure it is all that easy to tell but they are pretty cute anyway!

 

4) At school, the kids celebrated Chinese Culture Day with their Chinese class with a Mid Autumn Festival themed activity hour. Each child was able to choose a lantern. Lantern are used to decorate for every traditional Chinese holiday.

5) Painting a greeting on his Mid Autumn Festival Lantern

6) The artists show off their lanterns.

7) First grade gets to paint on a lantern too.

8) Proud of his Mid Autumn Festival Lantern!

9) Using a modern press to make an old fashioned mooncake.

10) Braden's mooncake came out perfectly. So fun!

If you are interested in learning even more about this holiday, check out this link, it looks like it is full of great information.

I'm linking up at Shimelle.com for the 10 on 10 monthly fun! Thanks for stopping by.

Vernell's Frosting Recipe for Cupcakes

On Saturday of this week, Vernell of Ole Talk was my guest blogger. We had many requests for her frosting recipe that she uses on her cupcakes. It sounds delicious! I've made a lot of frosting from scratch but I have never used marshmallow fluff. I can't wait to try it:

 

1 cup butter

2 cups icing sugar

1 cup marshmallow fluff

vanilla essence

milk (optional - add a little milk if the frosting is too thick)

Whisk butter until light and fluffy. Mix in icing sugar, then add the essence and marshmallow fluff and whisk until light and fluffy. This is my base recipe and I usually just add different extracts or spices to this for variety. For example I have added cinnamon and nutmeg to make a spice frosting, a couple tablespoons of Baileys Irish to make frosting for Irish cupcakes and say you wanted to make peanut butter frosting you would use 1/2 cup marshmallow fluff and 1/2 cup peanut butter. I should also note that I usually just wing it when it comes to frosting so adjust as needed.

If you give it a try, please let us know how it turned out.

I'm guest blogging today -- chocolate toppers for cupcakes...

Today is the day that I am a guest over at Vernell's blog. I am sharing my tips for making chocolate designs to decorate cupcakes. Please go over & check it out!

I'm so excited!

Still the same after all these years

 

 

This photo makes me smile for more than one reason. First of all, it is so Reece - if there is nothing else consuming him at the moment, he is reading. I love that this custom made Bionicle is joining him on his bed. He is almost 13 but still loves Legos as much as he did at 3 when he first discovered them. This morning he had dug out our Bionicle encyclopedia and he was pouring over it and searching for just the right pieces to come up with his very own personalized Bionicle. I'm holding on to these moments of boyhood while they last.

 

GUEST BLOGGER & GUEST BLOGGING

Thank you everyone who stopped by yesterday to read the tips from my lovely guest blogger, Vernell. I loved her tips and will be ready to go the next time I bake some CUPCAKES.

We had a few requests for her icing recipe so I will be posting that very soon. She sent it to me but I am having some odd email problems (possibly related to government internet blocking?) and when I get them fixed, the recipe will be up!

Don't forget to pop over to Vernell's blog on Monday when I will be guest posting on her blog and sharing my tips for making cupcake topper designs from chocolate!

Similar to these - but the ones I made for her blog are a bit more sophisticated:

To see everything CUPCAKE related on this blog, click here.

Baking Tips for Cupcakes by Vernell

Hello, blog readers! Today is a special day because I am welcoming my very first guest blogger. Her name is Vernell and she is not only a talented blogger, but a lover of delicious cupcakes that she makes from scratch.

Through all of her baking experience, she has acquired some great tips along the way she is generously sharing with us today:

 

I was delighted when Margie asked me to be a guest blogger on her blog.  As you can see we both share a love for cupcakes and really do complement each other as she loves to spend time decorating her cupcakes while I tend to focus more on trying new recipes and sticking with the basic piped frosting as decoration.

When Margie first asked me to do this post I was not sure what angle to approach it from.  The ideas I had were sharing some tips or blogging my process from recipe to completed cupcake.  I was leaning more towards the latter as I did not think that I had that many tips to share…but boy was I wrong.  As I made my last batch of cupcakes I realized just how many things I have picked up in the couple of years since the cupcake bug bit me.  So today I will share with you tips that I have learnt from my adventures in cupcake land.  Some of these may seem pretty obvious but chances are that if they are on this list that I learnt them the hard way.

**If the recipe calls for two or more sticks of unsalted butter, assuming you are using sticks that is, I use a mix of unsalted butter and margarine and then I just reduce the amount of salt I add by a bit.  This is more of a cost saving tip as unsalted butter costs way more than the margarine.

**If using a mixture and it has different attachments use the flat attachment to mix the cupcakes and the whisk like attachment for the frosting.  The whisk attachment makes the frosting that much more fluffy and light.

**Always crack eggs into a bowl individually before adding them to cupcake mixture.  Trust me on that one!

**Most recipes say that you should turn the oven on to heat and then combine the dry ingredients and then cream your butter and sugar.  I always put my butter and sugar to cream first and while I am waiting for it to get nice and light and fluffy I combine my dry ingredients.  I don’t turn the oven on until I am scooping the mixture into the cupcake liners.  Trust me the oven does not take that long to heat up.

**Always make sure your mixer, if you are using one, is at the lowest setting before adding the dry ingredients unless you want to be cleaning flour from places you did not know that flour could settle.  Same thing goes for adding icing sugar.

**Double up on cupcake liners if you want the pretty patterns of the liner to really show up after the cupcakes are baked.

**I always used to wonder how people got their frosting to look so full and fluffy on the cupcakes and not just flat until I learnt that I was using the wrong type of frosting for my cupcakes.  I am also an avid cookie baker at Christmas time and I was using the same royal type icing for my cupcakes when I first started making them until I realized that I should be using butter cream frosting to get those beautifully frosted cupcakes.

**If frosting is too stiff add some milk a little at a time until you achieve the right consistency.

**Double up on your icing bags as this makes it easier if you have to change colors or flavors if you want to use the same tip.  It also makes it less messy for clean up.  Also don’t fill them to the top unless you want icing coming out the top while you frost your cupcakes.

**Use a coupler if possible –makes it easier to change icing tips.

**Don’t go buying those fancy icing bag ties I just use a bag clip and it works like a charm.  I got mine at Ikea.

**When frosting, set cupcakes on a surface that is lower than counter top high – like a dining room table – makes it a lot easier to swirl that frosting on.

Well I hope that these tips have been useful and if you have any questions just leave a comment, as I will be checking back throughout the day.

Now go bake some cupcakes!

 

EDITED: Vernell's frosting recipe is now posted here.

 

Thanks, Vernell. Those were some very helpful tips. Now for some more cupcake goodness (and other crafty things), check out Vernell's blog.  (Rumor has it, she has a special announcement on her blog today! Go check it out.)

 

To see everything CUPCAKE related on this blog, click here.

Thursday at the Blog: Big Announcement, LOAD Day 18 & 19 & Embrace the Camera

So finally, the day has come when I announce my fabulous guest blogger.

Her name is Vernell and as I mentioned yesterday, she has a lovely blog and makes delicious cupcakes. On Saturday she will be sharing with us a whole bunch of cupcake making tips, but in the meantime, head over to her blog for lots of cupcake goodness, and other crafty things. But don't forget to come back here on Saturday for those great tips.

 

LOAD Day 19

 

LOAD Day 18

 

To see everything related to LOAD on my blog click here!

EMBRACE THE CAMERA

IIt's a terrible photo this week, but my husband is trying to take more photos of me. He just needs to figure out how to use the focus point and to stay still when he takes the picture. He'll get there eventually. To his credit he is trying to follow my instructions by getting more pictures of me interacting naturally with the kids. Maybe we'll get some better ones this weekend.

I do like that I am walking with my arm around my middle son. And it's cute you can make out his ice cream cone. A special moment...

To see more Embrace the Camera on my blog, click here.

Announcing my Guest Blogger... tomorrow!

First of all, have you noticed any changes to my blog? I have finally added a personalized blog banner and changed the name of my blog which really never had a name. All of these changes are temporary. I am not sure I like anything about my banner or my new name. But, since I have been trying to make changes to my blog for months now and have done nothing at all, I thought it was better to try out something imperfect rather than continually leaving the same boring impersonal picture up there with my no-name title.

Please let me know what you think. Especially viewability. How does this work on your browser? Is it easy to read and scroll through? Is the blog banner too busy and confusing? Distracting? I wanted to show a sampling of what I often post about which is our family adventures in China, photography, cupcakes and scrapbooking/memory keeping. Any ideas on how to show memory keeping or scrapbooking without an actual layout?

GUEST BLOGGER coming Saturday, May 21

I had planned to announce my guest blogger today, but then I thought a little better of it. I want to add to the suspense just a little bit longer. Today I am going to give you several hints as to who she is and then tomorrow I will announce her.

photo courtesy of my mystery guest blogger

First I should tell you why I invited her to do a guest post. One of my hobbies is decorating cakes and cupcakes. I have had an affinity for the type of decorating I do for a long time. It started in my childhood (more on this story another day) and now I love to make cakes & cupcakes for my boys and their activities. However, now that I have three boys and triple the activities, my time, creativity and patience is limited. A few years ago, I decided to give up making my cakes from scratch. I've switched completely over to box mixes and store bought frosting. This saves me loads of time and stress and saves all my creative energy for the decorating.

photo courtesy of my mystery guest blogger

My guest blogger, however, is very creative in the kitchen and she loves to experiment with cupcake recipes. Her cupcakes look delicous! I thought she would be the perfect complement to my blog which only focuses on the decorating aspect of cupcake making.

 

Any ideas who she is?

She is a very talented blogger.

She loves to bake cupcakes and experiment with recipes.

Her latest obsession is Pinterest.

I discovered her in the class Beyond Blogging for Scrapbookers taught by Shimelle.

She makes lots of beautiful cards.

On April 19 she celebrated her 5th year of blogging! Happy Belated Blogiversary.

She has three cats.

She designed her own blog.

 

Well, if you don't know who she is by now, hopefully you can tell she is very talented and I am lucky to have her share her talents with us on my blog. Come back tomorrow, when I will announce her name! In the meantime, take a guess at her name and leave it in the comments!

 

Lots More Cupcakes....

Can you believe it? More cupcakes!

Yet another bake sale. My older two boys' school has an annual fundraiser in which the kids organize everything. They decide where they money will go, how they will raise money and organize all kinds of booths to do it -  a guess how many booth, bounce houses, manicure station, face painting, arts & crafts table, cafe with entertainment, car wash, obstacle course, etc. They organize volunteers, make signs, etc, etc. This was my personal contribution - cupcakes! That is no surprise. Oh, and I also volunteered to be a wandering photographer, so I will share some of those photos soon.

Making those cupcakes is quite a SIMPLE THING but it makes me happy every time. It is a lot of work and I have to plan my week for plenty of baking time as well as decorating time. But it is rewarding and it means a lot to my kids. They get so excited when they have an event that needs food. They always volunteer me for cupcakes. I love when they get into it and when they help me decide which ones to make. My only criteria are that we can find the ingredients relatively easily in Beijing and they aren't too difficult so I can make a lot in a reasonable amount of time.

Nicholas helped choose what to make this time. He really wanted me to make these pie cupcakes. I must admit, those are the last ones I would have thought he would choose.

I chose these for variety. I get bored making too many of the same ones.

Nicholas didn't want me to make these because he said Easter is over. In my view, rabbits are always in fashion and it is the year of the rabbit so that would be true, especially this year. And we attempted to make them red since that is the Chinese color for celebration, but they turned out more like dark pink. Oh well. They are still pretty cute.

And this picture makes me think of that Sesame Street song - Which of these is not like the other? Which of these just doesn't belong? (I'm sure those aren't the exact words, but hopefully you know which song I mean.)
I also made more bird's nest cupcakes like I did last week for our other school.

And here we are in the taxi on the way to the FUNraiser, buried in cupcakes.

The ideas for the rabbits came from FamilyFun.com, the pies come from the book Hello, Cupcake (I strongly recommend it if you like decorating these kinds of cupcakes or want to learn. They have excellent instructions and a fun blog with tips.), the mad scientists came from googling - just saw several photos from different locations and copied and the bird's nest cupcakes I made up by combining different recipes for nest cookies and using them as cupcake toppers.

To see everything CUPCAKE related

on my blog, click here.

Click here for CUPCAKE BAKING TIPS from my guest blogger, Vernell.

 

In a few hours at 8 AM PST come back to my blog for the monthly One Little Word Blog Hop for Ali Edward's class at Big Picture Classes. This month we have 21 people showcasing their monthly project for April.

The class is still open for registration at BigPictureClasses.com and once you sign up, you are welcome to join us for the next blog hop. We do it every month on the 1st. Just send me an email.

Come hop around and see what the students did for their April projects.

Bird's Nest & Baby Chick Cupcakes: Step By Step; Perfect for Spring or Easter Celebrations

Making cupcakes!

Here's how to make these simple and easy super adorable Spring or Easter cupcakes!

To make the batter, I use a box mix. I used to make all my cakes and cupcakes & icings from scratch, but that took up too much time and the part I enjoy most is the decorating so something had to give. My brand of choice is Duncan Hines. I do change the directions a little - 2 cups of milk + 2 tablespoons of vinegar (let sit for 5 minutes before adding to the batter), 4 eggs and the amount of oil specified on the package.

This is an idea from Hello, Cupcake - put the batter in a ziploc bag and cut off the corner. IT is supposed to make the process neater. I do have less drips on my cupcake pan, but I still find it messy in other ways. I don't do this every time.

Bake.

Now to start making the nests. Start with a 10 ounce bag of marshmallows or in this case 300 grams. I had these in the cabinet and was hoping it wouldn't matter if I used white and pink marshmallows.

First melt some butter. I used the directions from the Rice Krispy website. I believe this is 5 Tbsp of butter (2.5 ounces).

Add the package of marshmallows and melt over medium heat while stirring constantly until mixture is totally smooth. Remove from heat.

Six cups of shredded wheat. I ended up using 7 of the large pieces broken up. As soon as I removed the marshmallows & butter from the heat, I added the crushed up Shredded Wheat pieces. Stir until well coated.

 

While the mixture is still warm (or hot) and soft, begin shaping the nests. When they are too hot to handle butter the back of a spoon to scoop out and use the back of a second spoon to shape the inside of the nests. After a few minutes the mixture will be cool enough to handle with your clean, bare hands.

Make the same number of nests as you have cupcakes.

You will need 3 jelly beans for each nest. Or you could use chocolate eggs. I was stocking up on jelly beans. I found a few bags packaged for the local population (on the left). The others were at the import store and are from Japan.

Since we need to put the nests on top of the cupcake, the cupcake top cannot be rounded. They must be flat. If yours came out like this...

You will need to cut off the top using a serrated knife.

Frost the cupcakes green like grass.

 

Fill each nest with 3 jelly beans. I put matching colors in most of my nests.

Place one nest on top of each green frosted cupcake.

 

Aren't they adorable?

BABY CHICK CUPCAKES

I like variety so I wanted to make one other design of cupcake. I needed a triange of orange and was planning to use the corner of a Starburst. But it seems that one of my children had been helping himself to the Starburts one by one and when I opened the bag, the two Starburts you see in this photo were the only ones left! Not an orange one in sight. So I had to improvise. I found these rainbow Twizzlers in my candy stash and thought this bright orange one would be perfect (looks much more orange in person). So I cute them into squares first and then cut again at an angle to make trianges. I needed one for each cupcake.

These white Fruitips are perfect for the eyes but there were only 7 total so I only had enough for 3 cupcakes.

 

Dark chocolate frosting in a ziplock bag with the tip cut off (just a tiny bit - maybe 1/8 inch). I used this to put a pupil in each eye. I hold the tip straight above the place on the eye I want, squeeze gently and as the icing hits the spot I want it I make a gentle circle until I get the size of the pupil that I want.

 

For the rest of the eyes, I found this icing writer in my stash. It is made by Wilton. It was a gift from a friend - thank goodness I had this! Otherwise my chicks would not have any eyes! I used the lid of the icing writer to stamp a circle on the icing and I traced the outline and filled it in to make perfectly uniform circles!

 

Here they are with their adorable little faces. Be careful where you place the elements of your face - especially the eyes. THat is what will give your cupcake its character. The little tuft of feathers on the top was originally 3 orange jimmies - which I don't have nor can I buy here in China. So, I improvesed and used three orange flower sprinkles. You can see a better glimpse of their shape in the last photo of this series.

 Here are the cupcakes on my cupcake tray just before I had to cart them to the school in the rain.

 

I had one extra cupcake that I frosted green before I remembered to cut off the rounded part - so what to do? I added some green decorator sugar and a few flower sprinkles to make a cute spring cupcake! These are the same ones I used to make the feather tuft on the chicks! If these are too small for you to handle placing them correctly on the chick, try using a clean, sterilized tweezers.

  What's your favorite Easter or Springtime Treat? Tell me in the comments.

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and that you enjoy making these adorable, yet very easy (espeically the chickies) spring or Easter cupcakes!

Have a great day! And if you celebrate - Happy Easter!

To see everything CUPCAKE related on my blog, click here.

 

Click here for CUPCAKE BAKING TIPS from my guest blogger, Vernell.

Easy & Very Cute Spring Cupcake Ideas from around the web & Beijing in 3D

 Check out these Adorable & EASY Springtime Cupcake Ideas

from around the Blog World.

Let me know what you think. As I mentioned before, I will be making lots of cupcakes for two upcoming bakesales (April 23 & 29) and needed some cute, easy ideas that make a powerful impact to uphold my cupcake decorating reputation with the school set here in Beijing (not hard to do since nobody bakes let alone decorates!! Hehe!).

via www.goodtoknow.co.uk

Thanks to Deb for the link to these adorable & easy butterfly buns. I love finding out about common and useful websites from other parts of the world that are completely unknown to me!

 

originally from Familyfun.com

 

via www.google.com

 

via www.marthastewart.com

 

via www.google.com

Click here to see how I made the chick cupcakes.

 

via www.thepartyanimal-blog.org

 

via www.foodnetwork.com

via www.marthastewart.com

 

via sites.google.com

 

To see everything CUPCAKE related on my blog, click here.

Very soon I will be posting:

*step by step instructions (with photos) of the cupcakes I make this weekend.  DONE:  Click here to see the chick cupcakes and 1 other cupcake design I made for our bake sale today, including step by step instructions with photos.

Click here for CUPCAKE BAKING TIPS from my guest blogger, Vernell.

Are you making treats for something special? Easter, perhaps? A spring party? Leave me a comment & tell me your favorite homemade Springtime or Easter treat.

 

Simple Things that made me Smile This Week:

The whole family in 3D glasses!

Big Brothers (the Geges):

Little Brother (Didi):

Dad (Baba):

Youngest son (xiao erzi) & Mom (Mama):

We rode our bikes to Chaoyang Park this past Saturday and spent a few hours at the Sony Explorascience Center. Our admission included a 20 minute film in 3D. I think they were giving us a sampling of what it would be like to own a 3D TV. We watched about 10 minutes of the World Cup in 2009 and 10 minutes of underwater footage. The second half was the most fun.

The rest of the Explorascience Center reminded me of a mini-Exploratorium in San Francisco.

 

Alphanumeric Blog Hop is Live!

Welcome to Xnomads' Blog!

I'm so eXcited that you are here!! Congratulations if you have made it this far. I am the last stop on this very fun blog hop!

If you are starting on my blog and have missed all the other blogs, you can click to I Speak Melsh to start at the very beginning. She has some fun blog hop activities to tell you about so make sure you don't miss it. Otherwise just keep on reading because you are almost finished.

To those of you who have been here before, WELCOME BACK! And for those of you are at  Xnomads' Blog for the first time, I thought I would share a little about myself.

I am an eX-Southern California resident (south of LAX about half an hour) and have been living in Beijing, China (not Xi'an, though I went there way back in 1997 to see the terracota warriors) for almost 3 years. My husband's job brought us here and we have 3 eXcitable boys - 12, 10 & 6. All of them attend bilingual schools so are much better at speaking Mandarin than me! For the Spring Holiday, they went around saying, "Xin Nian Kuai Le!"

I also answered some questions from this fun quiz from Scrapbook Shortcuts, a Simple Scrapbooks special issues from a long time ago! That way you can get to know me eXtra well and I can save it for the journaling of a future scrapbook page:

TWO X TWO

1) Two everyday things I couldn't live without: my laptop & my hair straightener (or else I could never leave the house - since kids, my hair has gone frizzy)

2) Two of my favorite songs: Falling Slowly (Once Soundtrack) & Anyone Else But You (Juno Soundtrack)

3) Two things I want to do before I die: buy a house on a cliff overlooking the ocean & hike the Anapurnas

4) Two things I worry about: the amount of pollution in the air in Beijing & traffic safety (no carseats and rarely any seatbelts in taxis)

6) Two stores I shop at: 'The Supermarket' (the small import store in our apartment compleX) & City Shop (another import store)

6) Two things that scare me: construction in China during an earthquake & my children becoming teenagers

7) Two snacks I could eat every day: popcorn & crisp delicious carrots (that someone else cut up for me)

8) Two people I'd be lost without: all four members of my family

9) Two nicknames I've beengiven: Mugsy (by Jenny in elementary school) & Mar (by Diane in college)

10) Next two places I want to go on vacation: India (next month! hurray!) & Maldives

 

The things I talk most about on this eXtra special blog are:

PHOTOGRAPHY

SCRAPBOOKING

DECORATING CUPCAKES & CAKES

 

An eXcellent eXample of my photography are these photos:
 

When I sit down to scrapbook, sometimes I feel eXtra creative. Sometimes I don't. Here are a few of my favorite recent layouts: 

Some cakes I made that eXhausted me:

I think I used this alligator cupcake cake as a teaser on my old blog during the first BFS! [I wish I could link back to it but unfortunately my old blog became corrupted and since it was supported by Apple and their various tech people (At least 10 tried to help me) were never able to fix the problem, that blog is now lost forever.]

Other things I sometimes share on this blog are:

*HeathIER (yet still delicious) Recipes,

*eXtra good things I find on the web

*photos of field trips to places around BEIJING &

*personal and family updates.

 

I'm so glad you stopped by! I hope you will come by again.

But before you go...

Please leave me a comment and if you can't think of anything to say, tell me the next two places you'd like to go on vacation or the two items you can't live with out.

 

This is a list of all the participating blogs on the Alphanumeric Blog Hop. I hope you had fun!

I Speak Melsh

BE Glorious

Captured On Film

Chatty Crafty Arty Pig

Creating Room

Curiouser and Curiouser

Daily Life - Bits and Pieces

Deb's World

Den's Crafty Diary

From High In The Sky

Gallo Organico

Ginger's Life Of Spice

Handmade By Kirsty

Havoc and Mayhem

Heather's Scraps

Helena's Creative Maven

Holaday's Happy Hearts

Jeant-Jinnag

Just Jimjams

K's Crafty Corner

Life...As I See It

{Life Behind The Purple Door}

Lisa E Design Blog

Living Life One Blessing At A Time

Mary's Musings

Michelle Loves...

Obstinate Pursuit

Over At Our Place

Paper Turtle

Peonies and Pennies

Random Reflections

Rosalind Revival

Scrap Dreams

Scrappyjacky

Scrapworthy Lives

Staring At The Sea

Surefiredaisy Says

This Kalil Life

This Little Life Of Mine

Xnomads' Blog  <----- YOU ARE HERE)

Note: If any of the posts aren't up yet, please bear with us - the different time zones and the peculiarity of blogging platforms when it comes to autoposts may mean that one or two posts don't appear on time! If that's the case, come back to this list to pick up from the next blog, but do please pop back and try the other link later, when the post should be there for your enjoyment.

 

OTHER EXCITEMENT COMING UP ON THIS BLOG...

Do you have enough photos of your whole family? No?

Then join us for this monthly challenge - one FAMILY photo a month for 2011 AND a link up here on the 5th of every month to keep you motivated. It's SUPER easy.

In May we are having a Mini Blog Hop for the FAMILY x 12 project.

May 5 I will have a mini blog-hop to showcase my monthly personal project FAMILY x 12. If you are taking a monthly family photo (or would like to start) and would like to join us for a little motivation and light accountability, leave me a comment or send me an email (link on the right hand side of my blog) and I'll be in touch with the details. (A family photo can be whatever you define as family, even if that is just you and your spouse/partner or you and your cat [dogs count too]!)

Are you in Ali's ONE LITTLE WORD Class? Need a little push to get your assignments done?

 
 

Join our Monthly Blog Hop on the May 1st!

If you are in Ali Edwards' ONE LITTLE WORD class over at Big Picture Classes and want to share your projects with your fellow clasmates as well as see what many of them have been up to for the past month, join us here on May 1st, 8 AM PST for a fun blog hop. We will be doing this every month on the 1st for 2011. Please go to the Chit Chat section of the classroom message board for instructions on how to sign up.

If you want to put a ONE on 1 Blog Hop blog button on your blog, feel free to grab the code over there on the right side of this blog.  Click here for every thing ONE LITTLE WORD on this blog including past blog hops.

 

I'm looking for Spring/Easter Cupcake Ideas

via familyfun.go.com

I found these meringue nests that I might put on top of a cupcake.

What do you think?

I have two bake sales coming up over the next two weekends so I am looking for easy ideas that require only simple ingredients (we have limited supplies here in Beijing) yet have a big impact. I have a reputation to uphold! Haha! Just kidding.

I always like to make a variety of designs for each batch or else I get bored. Send any good ideas or websites my way please.

EDITED 4/19/2011: Click here to see a list of great & simple ideas with links for Spring or Easter Cupcakes.

To see everything CUPCAKE related on my blog, click here.

 

Click here for CUPCAKE BAKING TIPS from my guest blogger, Vernell.

Cupcakes Then (Sports) & Now (Insects & Scorpions)

I love blog posts that do a retrospective. Where they go back in time and compare what was happening in the past with something going on today. They are so cool. So, when it was the prompt for Blogging for Scrapbookers today, I had to alter my planned post a bit.

My original plan was to share my latest cupcake creations. So I decided to go back in time and see if I had created any fun cupcakes last year around this time and to my delight, I had!

THEN

These cupcakes I made for sports day at the school of my two oldest boys last April. Click here to see that post.

NOW

Below are some cupcakes I made for a field trip picnic that I helped chaperon this past Saturday. My older two boys volunteered me to bring cupcakes since I am slightly well-known around the school set for making decorative cupcakes.

Admittedly, the community here is easy to impress since a decent cake is hard to come by in Beijing where very few people bake, let alone have ovens. And nobody decorates anything! It is really not part of the culture. So, when I bring my creations, I get showered with acolades.

I'm sure once I return home where I am just another creative mom in the crowd of other creative moms, I may suffer some withdrawls wondering quietly to myself why nobody is gushing over my hours of hard work.

I'm sure I'll get used to it. And the nice part will be the privelege of being around others who also like to create and getting inspired by them and their great ideas. I miss seeing birthday cakes that my friends lovingly plan and make for their kids.

So, not much has changed. I'm still making cupcakes! In fact, another bake sale is coming up for Earth Day, so I better start figuring out what what to make for that event. Any ideas? I'd love to hear them.

Most of these ideas come from one of my two favorite cupcake books: What's New, Cupcake? and Hello, Cupcake! Another favorite resource for fun & easy cupcakes is Family Fun.

 

Click here for CUPCAKE BAKING TIPS from my guest blogger, Vernell.

Week in Photos including Bug & Butterfly Cupcakes

Sunday, March 26

On our way down the escalator to the food court for Sunday dinner. We live right next door to a shopping mall that has a couple of restaurants on the basement level that we like to visit occasionally. This night we had noodles.

Monday, March 27
We are going to India very soon and need tourist visas. One of the requirements is two passport size photos with blue backgrounds. If I had a nickel for every time we had to get some kind of passport-ish sized photo while here in China, I'd have a wallet full of change! It is silly. Worked out though because I needed some for the school applications I've been filling out for Reece & Braden.

Tuesday, March 28Braden is picking out his story for the night (the box is full of paperback books brought from home - most all are from Scholastic orders) while Dad does some work on his laptop.

Wednesday, March 29

Braden's school had a family pancake breakfast this Wednesday morning. The kids could wear their PJs for a small donation to the charity of the month. Who doesn't love PJ day?!

Thursday, March 31

Practicing my photography today. This week I have been studying Steve McCurry's website and blog. Many of his photos are made up of compound pictures, meaning two or more perfectly composed moments in the same image. That is my own definition. Many of the great photographers do this. And each moment or image in the photo relate to one another and bring further meaning to the main subject. I was trying this here. Just practicing. Two pictures in this one photo - one of my son looking at stickers and one of our ayi vacuuming. A step in the right direction anyway!

Friday, April 1

There is a field trip on Saturday (see note below on why there is school this Saturday in China). The boys' teacher decided to organize a potluck for lunch. My kids volunteered me for cupcakes and apples for 40 people. Since creative cupcakes and cakes are my thang, I couldn't disappoint.

Nicholas chose the bug cupcakes (from either What's New, Cupcake or Hello, Cupcake!). I thought they would be perfect for a fieldtrip/picnic type theme. Not to mention, they are relatively easy to make and have a good impact. Of course every store I checked was out of mini M&Ms. I had several friends combing the import stores in their neighborhoods for them. Finally on Wednesday, one of my local import stores had some! I could have gotten by without them since they required very few, but it made the whole process easier and look better.

Click here for CUPCAKE BAKING TIPS from my guest blogger, Vernell.

Saturday, April 2

This Saturday is a school day in China. Why, you ask? Well, because of the Qing Ming Festival holiday, of course! Because everyone worked or went to school on Saturday, they now get Sunday, Monday & Tuesday off - three days off in a row. Oh? Why don't they just give everyone Monday off and take the weekend off as normal? That would still be 3 days off in a row and nobody would have to work or go to school for 6 straight days which is very tiring and leads to less productivity. Good question! Very good question! But you forgot that you are talking about China! Many things just do not make sense, even to the locals.

I was a chaperon on the field trip to Peking Man, a museum about a cave man found near Beijing. I had in my group, my two oldest boys as well as four of their friends - SIX BOYS (including one pre-teen who is my own son). Talk about challenging to control! I was close to finding another group for my pre-teen, but then he decided to shape up a little and without losing too much face, help me out a tiny tiny bit. The boys did have fun and I got to take lots of photos. Of course that is what I love to do. Not too much hang out time with my kids as Mom isn't as exciting as she used to be. But the bus rides to and from school were nice since it was just me and the two of them in the back row of the bus. No friends to compete for their attention. My life as a mom sure is changing!

In this photo they are digging for fossils. The museum was all about ancient man and what they discovered and how. Very cool and surprisingly high tech. I was impressed. Didn't get too much time to really learn a lot with the limited time we had and the job of keeping six boys in line. Hopefully I can go back another time when I can really focus on what the museum has to offer.

We Love Japan Cupcakes

Braden's school is having a bake sale this week to raise money to help the victims in the tsunami & earthquake that ravished Japan this month. Braden picked out this style from my What's New Cupcake? book. We changed the words on the conversation hearts to match the spirit.

The cupcakes either say JAPAN, LOVE, We love Japan or We {HEART} Japan.

Don't forget to send a donation to the Red Cross to help out Japan!