Saying farewell with style...High Heeled Cupcakes!!

This summer, my office had a great intern. She was hard-working, fun, energetic, and honestly a nice change of pace from the usual guy engineers I often work with. Don't get me wrong, 10 years into engineering I've accepted and embraced that a majority of my colleagues are and will always be male and really they are great! That said it was a treat to have some extra pink in the office and an extra pair of eyes in our engineer div that appreciated fun shoes :) I especially liked being able to reference and share the legally blonde approach to work (work hard, be nice, look professional but cute, etc)  

Needless to say, before she left I had to take advantage of the opportunity to make some fun girls cupcakes while I had someone on my team who would appreciate them. So to celebrate a successful summer and her final out brief of her projects, I made high-heeled cupcakes for the team. 

I have made the shoe cupcakes one time before, but it has been a little while so I have been itching to make them again. This time I went with a black and pink theme and kept the shoes super simple- just using extra pink gum sticks for bows on two pairs and then doing polka dots with icing in the other pairs. Like last time I used sanding sugar for the coloring, cut graham crackers covered in icing for the body of the shoe and then pirouette cookies for the heels.

 Because I made them on a week night- I has to limit the shoes to four pairs and did quick filler cupcakes with sprinkles and a few laffy taffy purses for the rest. I did add a legally blonde touch by stealing a cup from Addie's Minnie Mouse tea set and making a little snap cup complete with a few snaps :)

The real challenge this time around was getting them to work. As last time I made them there was no transporting involved. I ended up 'gluing' the high heels to the platter with icing and then putting them In the fridge overnight and seemed to do the trick as made it to work in one piece. Success! And best of all, our intern loved them- as did most if the office - engineering guys included :)

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Gray Sick Day = Snuggles + Angry Bird Cupcakes!

After a nice 4 miles of speed at track this morning I was sprinting through our morning routine to get everyone out the door and to school at a reasonable time :) we were actually doing pretty well on time until I picked Addie up out of her crib and noticed she was pretty warm.  Thinking it was just the winter footed pjs she had been insisting in wearing lately despite the August heat- I got her dressed and thought I would just let her cool off while I got kellan dressed. No such luck- when I checked again- this time officially with a thermometer we had a nice 101.7 temp :( 

So I quickly rearranged my day to stay home and changed gears. Kellan heard me say I was staying home and promptly informed me he was staying home as well (although about mid day think he decided he had had enough of Addie's sick day and asked to go to school to play with his friends :)

As we snuggled in for pirate Dora (the perfect compromise show at our house at the moment :) I asked kellan what he would like to make for the builders putting the final touches on our new porch today- cookies or cupcakes? Out of no where he told me Angry Bird cupcakes- so we did a quick google on it. Luckily we had most everything we needed in the house so I thought sounds fun- why not? 

My little helper told me he wanted the red one, the blue one, the yellow one and the mean piggy. Not a big angry birds player myself- have no clue who all these guys really are- but found some great examples online to use as a model. 

 Because I wanted to use what we had in hand, I used white chocolate melts for white parts of birds and pig noses instead of marshmallows, used candy eyes, caramels for beaks, cut up pieces if gummy worms (yes we have a bizarre collection of candy in hand, i know :)  and then just used black icing to draw on eye brows. We used sanding sugar for all colors but yellow since we are out - so just made yellow icing. 

All in all they were actually pretty easy and turned out pretty fun. Both kids enjoyed them and we even had to take a box to Kellan's teachers when changed his mind and opted to go to school! 

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