Bridal Accessories with a Wild Side

Let's face it, almost every one of us has a wild side, but very few are willing let everyone know about it, especially when it comes to a wedding theme. One of my very good friends recently got married and her theme was Zebra print and Pink. For a wedding you ask? Yes, and I will tell you, thanks to a lot of talented and creative people this color scheme looked amazing and was a surprising mix of fun and classy. Since I was lucky enough to attend the wedding, it was very cool to see everything come together.

When my friend told me about her theme choice, I knew she would need some custom designed invitations and luckily I had a friend who specializes in such matters. Kaleidoscope Design Studio is a graphic design company that specializes in custom design work for all of your needs from business to weddings. For this wedding, she created the most beautiful zebra and pink inspired bridal invitations, place cards, water bottle labels, and thank you notes! If you need Custom Bridal Invitations done, check this site out, she does amazing work!

Here is where I got involved. First up, since this friend is also a co-worker we threw a surprise shower for her at work. I of course was tasked with making the cake. For this I decided to do cupcakes. This friend is a huge fan of cakeballs but with the amount of people at this shower I couldn't make that happen. Instead I opted for basic vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. To add a little fun I found black and white polka dot cupcake wrappers and I tinted the buttercream hot pink. To add an additional level of flair I used kitchen scissors to cut mini marshmallows and I dipped the sticky side in pink sugar crystals. I took of picture of them using the Hipstamatic App on my iphone and I love how the colors look so that it the picture I am sharing below.

I was so honored when the bride asked me to design the hair flowers for the bridesmaids and flower girls. Zebra print and pink seemed like a big challenge until I arrived at the fabric store and found a beautiful zebra print satin fabric. The rest was easy. For the bridesmaids, I opted for a pointy 5 petal flower using the zebra fabric as the petals. I accented the center of the flower with a hot pink rhinestone button. For the flower girls I went with my standard black satin hair flower with rounded petals. To incorporate the zebra print for them, I covered fabric buttons with the zebra satin and used them as the center. The bride and bridal party loved them. Since I was a guest at the wedding I also had the chance to see my hair accessories in action which was very cool. One of the bridesmaids was kind of enough to pose so you could see how this bridal party used the flowers. I listed the zebra flower in my etsy shop, you can find it by clicking here.



Today I have another formal hair flower design I want to experiment with. This idea was inspired by my brother's upcoming wedding where I have also been asked to create the hair flowers for the bridesmaids and flower girls. Since my daughter and I are included in that mix, be prepared for many pictures of those in action! This is not the best picture but I am going to add a twist to the red flower on this pattern.

I enjoy everything about making things for Purplelicious but designing custom flowers for weddings is my favorite. I like being able to think outside of the box, work with different fabrics, and experiment with various color combinations. Hopefully more of these custom orders will find their way to me in the future!

Caramel Apple Cupcakes!

I realize that this blog has been a little heavy on baking experiments as opposed to sewing experiments, but don't worry. I have a few new accessory ideas that I would LOVE to tell you about, if I ever stop baking and work on one of those ideas. Ok, in keeping with the cupcake theme I decided to try a cupcake baking experiment. I feel like it is time to branch out from basic chocolate and vanilla, but really I had a tray of apple slices that I forgot to put out for my daughter's birthday party that were going to go bad. I could have easily used them to make a Jewish Apple Cake which are delicious and simple but I wanted a challenge. After all the easy route is never all that fun. I immediately thought cupcakes, through the power of google and the keywords "apple cupcake" I came across something that read, Caramel Apple cupcakes. Whoa, this got my wheels churning and I wanted an apple cupcake with a caramel buttercream. Sounds easy enough! I searched through a couple of different recipes until I found two that I liked. Each component belonged to a different recipe but I like piecing different things together. It keeps things fun.

Here is the Apple Cupcake Recipe. I must admit that I have rarely made a cake from scratch, I almost always use mixes. (I guess my secret is out now). As I was making this batter I was starting to get concerned. I have made enough cake mixes to know what cake batter looks like and that was not what was in my mixing bowl. This batter almost comes out like a cookie batter. When it was done I re-read the recipe several times to make sure I didn't miss a step. My tips if you are working with this recipe: Slowly add your apples, too many will cause the "batter" to come apart which causes them to crumble in the wrapper after they are baked. Also it might not hurt to spray the liners with a little cooking spray. (I learned this trick one time I tried to make brownie bites in cupcake wrappers). Despite the less than perfect baked cake result they tasted amazing!


Now onto the buttercream. Here is the recipe I used for the Caramel Buttercream. I didn't realize what I was getting myself into here until I was about halfway into making the caramel. The recipe says to make the caramel using the microwave, this made me nervous for some reason so instead I made it on the stovetop. I cooked the ingredients over low heat. This took a while, but I was patient and I just kept stirring. I put a lot of love into this caramel. Then I realized I should have been using a candy thermometer. The recipe says its done when it is thick and bubbly which seems easy enough to decipher but it isn't. My concern was that I was going to cook it too long and end up with hard caramel that wouldn't mix into the buttercream. Fortunately I lucked out with this. As it cooled it was still smooth. If you make this I would suggest using a candy thermometer JUST to make sure you don't cook it too much. Also this recipe makes a LOT of caramel, you can probably cut the recipe in half unless you like having a lot of caramel around the house. The buttercream is very easy to make and the caramel mixes right in. I added the 1/4 cup and tasted it, I felt like it needed more caramel, I kept adding a little at a time until I felt like the flavor was there.

Here is what they look like cut in half. They are very rich and have a very buttery apple taste. The buttercream is a good compliment to the cake. At one point it tasted like apple pie a la mode. I brought them into work and they were devoured in less than 10 minutes, that makes me think they were pretty good. If you decide to make them if you have any other tips feel free to share! Enjoy the caramel apple deliciousness!

7th Birthday Cupcake Fun!

I am fairly proud of myself for getting out of having big birthday parties for my daughter. It's not that I am against them, while in daycare she just didn't have a circle of friends close enough to her. Now that she is in 1st grade, I am out of excuses and we already did the trip to American Girl Place in New York. I started to research birthday party ideas in the area but we have already been on a birthday party circuit and everything has already been done before. If you know me, I don't like to do the things that everyone else does. I came across a place that did cupcake decorating parties and a light bulb went off when I looked at the price per kid. Granted I have never taught a group of 1st graders how to do anything but I do know how to decorate a cupcake and do crafts. Isabella's 7th Birthday party was decided.

I immediately went to Etsy for the invitations. I found this adorable shop called TrinityStStudio. Her shop is filled with so many creative invitations. She also does coordinating items like stickers and thank you cards. Which reminds me, I need to order those. This is the design I ordered,Cupcake Trio Birthday Party Invitation I just LOVE the colors and they became the theme colors for the party.

My next stop was to Oriental Trading company, I ordered cupcake necklace kits, princess crown kits, and cupcake boxes. Everything was starting to come together. Then I was reminded that I needed to make birthday treats for school. I happened to be looking at my new Cake Pops by Bakerella book and my daughter saw the Cupcake Bite balls and declared that was what she wanted. Its her birthday so I said why not. They were SUPER easy to make and came out so cute, they tasted good too.

With the birthday party looming I was starting to have some doubts about what I had gotten myself into. In talking to some of the mom's at cheerleading that morning they were in so many words, saying, "Yeah good luck with that". I knew that preparation was key when having 14 1st graders at your house. I also decided that if all hell broke lose I had Just Dance on the Wii! I had spent so much time baking cupcakes, prepping necklace kits, and setting tables that I had given ZERO thought to how I was going to decorate the Giant Cupcake for the birthday cake...the biggest detail! The giant cupcake pan is a good time. The possibilities are endless with how to decorate it. I would have loved to use fondant but I know the kids don't like it all that much. I went with buttercream, sprinkles, twizzlers, and a few starbursts. I decorated it, like a cupcake. Genius right? I basically piped stars in strips on the base and then stuck the twizzlers in between the rows. Then used my giant star tip and swirled the icing around the top. The individual cupcakes had little alphabet toppers that said Isabella. I made them by softening and rolling out a few strawberry starbursts and cut them out with my letter fondant cutters.

Next time I would probably make the letters bigger and use the cherry starbursts, the letters got a little lost in the icing. I also used WAY too much of the blue coloring for the bottom, the colors were supposed to match the theme on the invitation. Like always, I am my own worst critic. The cake was a hit and so was the party. It seemed like the girls had a good time and I was able to complete two crafts and teach them how to decorate cupcakes. I did have to play my Just Dance card, with about 10 minutes left, the soda and sugar kicked in and I had lost their attention!

Here is where I run into problems with Bella's birthday, with every successful birthday idea, next year has to be bigger and better. I guess that is less of a problem and more of a challenge. Fortunately, I am always up for a good challenge! Happy Birthday to my favorite person in this universe, Isabella!