desserts and scrapbook paper

this weekend was a sugar-filled, yet ovenless, and really quite busy one for me. i had the pleasure of making 'cupcakes' for two different birthdays, but did not hear one single 'happy birthday' song sung!

the first birthday was for jerry, one of my two awesome father-in-laws. we celebrated his birthday at the riparian reserve, after taking family pictures. needless to say, after spending over an hour taking pictures of chris' mom and step-dad, sister and her family, older brother and his family, our family, and robert's family, there were quite a few antsy, and hungry mouths to feed. and it's not even the toddlers who were the antsy ones. so we enjoyed some wonderful kfc, and the cheesecake bites that i made from a box. (cheesecake with strawberries on the side was the request made for desserts.)

if you are short on time, or just don't feel like baking, this little box is a lifesaver! it is sheer easy, yummy wonderment.

so i made these cheesecake bites, but when i put them in the cupcake paper things, they were deformed and crazy looking. so i got some ribbon that i happened to have (cupcake on the left) and taped it on. perfect! then i ran out of ribbon. so i got some scrapbook paper that kinda matched the ribbon, and taped that on to the remaining cupcake things. the motif on the cupcake/cheesecake bites matched the ribbon as well, i rolled fondant and had different rectangles all up on them. i even tried to put caramel sauce to match the golden hue of the ribbon. it did not turn out great. and the reason oi am not posting a better picture of my dessert is that they kinda got melty in the car when we were taking our pics and i didn't take any pictures before we left the house cause i was just finishing them up and we were late. story of my life.    

then the second set of desserts that i made, actually pretty much as soon as we got back from our family funtimes, was for a sweet little friend of topher and lily's. i was pretty excited to make these since i was looking forwarad to making girly cupcakes. i had already decided on no fondant. i made the flowers out of royal icing (pretty much milk and icing sugar) and i made a ton of them, which is great, cause the extras are sitting in a container in my freezer for another day. these cupcakes are actually mini-muffins (again, was really not in a baking mood this weekend!)  with a strawberry cream cheese frosting. the whole thing was supposed to be a 'healthy' alternative to straightup cupcakes, but man were these things sweet! i ate one as a test-run, which i pretty much never do. but they were really really sweet. like really sweet. i need to find a better cream cheese frosting.... when i dropped the cupcakes off to my girlfriend, i told her i would not be offended if she scraped most of the frosting off when serving them. i wonder if she did...        

                                              

thanks to my no fondant rule on these cupcakes, i still wanted to have happy birthday on there somewhere, so i made these little paper flags with cardstock, and decorated them with little flowers from some other scrapbooking paper i had. i was pretty happy with how they turned out.

anyhoo, happy belated birthdays to jerry and cambry!  i am so blessed to have you both in my life! and thanks for letting me make your 'birthday cakes' (and eat them too!)

ps. i am really hating the way blogger has pictures and text working together right now. if you have mastered the art of uploading pics AND being able to write stuff, without wanting to throw your computer out the window, please let me know your secrets. thanks