Halloween

Well, after a short hiatus, I'm back in the swing of things! On the agenda for today is cupcake's for the Harvest Party at our church tonight and for dinner at my sister's house this evening. A dozen cupcakes for each event, all devil's food....should be quick and simple!

I got the updated business cards and magnets from www.vistaprint.com and after a short mishap with them and a rush reorder, I've got some pretty amazing cards in my hands. I caught a cold after my first set of cupcake orders, so I haven't been making any and I'm so anxious and ready to get my hands back on some cupcakes! Bring it on! :o)

KitchenAid

So with the death of my hand mixer, I had to find something to make my cupcakes with. I mean, my arms are great and all, but mixing 100 cupcakes worth of batter and frosting?! I think not. So my mom let me borrow her electric hand mixer and her stand mixer. I'm pretty sure the hand mixer is older than I am, but it held its own and worked great. The point of this post, however, is to gush about the stand mixer. That amazing KitchenAid stand mixer. Can we just take a moment here to appreciate this thing?

It even looks good! This thing was amazing!! Can we say "Christmas present" (hint*hint)? Needless to say, I don't think my mom is going to be getting this back anytime soon.

Why?!

I have a 3 year old son who, as you can imagine, is very curious and wants to know everything right now. He also loves sweets (what 3 year old doesn't?) so everytime he sees me making cupcakes, he is elated. He wants to be right there watching the entire time and if I send him to watch cartoons or play, rest assured it is not very long before he returns to find out if the cupcakes are done yet. So imagine his dismay this past weekend while I was making at least 100 cupcakes and every time he asked if he could have one, I had to tell him no. Trauma! And drama, too if we are being honest here. "Why, Mom?! Pretty, pretty please?" I must have heard these words at least 10 times. Don't worry, though, he eventually got his cupcake (I'm sure he snuck more than one - we were surrounded by cupcakes!) and all was well with the world again.

Nerves

I did it! I filled my first cupcake order! I made 40 cupcakes (chocolate, devil's food and vanilla) for a friend of my sister's who was having a jewelry party. I can't even explain how nervous I was. It's one thing to make a bazillion cupcakes at home when it's just me and my husband, but to actually make them for actual people?! It was frightening. My head was a mess of thoughts. Would they like them? What if they tasted bad? What if people thought they were goofy looking? What if, what if, what if? But you know what? Everyone loved them! I got awesome reviews and I was so relieved!

I also finished my second cupcake order this weekend. This one was 60 cupcakes for the baptism of one of my niece's. Lots of cupcakes for lots of people! This time was a little bit more exciting because I actually got to hear from the people themselves about how good the cupcakes were, how cute they are, etc. Looks like I'm on my way! I will post new pictures soon.

Death of a hand mixer

It finally happened. I killed my faithful, dedicated hand mixer. It was always there for me and never complained when I made it work for hours on end. It took the workload I threw at it and attacked it with a vengeance. But apparently, I took advantage of it one too many times. It just couldn't hold up to the pressure anymore (literally, lots of pressure. It died when I was trying to make a double batch of frosting, which I was warned against doing.) *sigh* Just when I was starting to appreciate that thing, too!

Basics

We have completed 2 of our 4 decorating basics classes. "We" being myself, my mother, my sister and my niece. Let's just say that with short attention spans, all 4 of us together in a confined place, and 3 of the 4 of us having type A personalities that we aren't exactly star students. It definitely makes for an interesting 2 hours, though!

Just in case your having trouble envisioning how comical my family is in this class, here's a picture of my mom's "cake". The best part about it is that she was so intent that she was going to torte, fill and frost that cake just like everybody else was doing. I don't think Decorating Basics has ever heard so much laughter!

We're all a bit concerned though because in the first class, it was full. There were 11 people there, including us. The second class there were only 6 people, including us. Hmmmm...
All in all, the classes are fun and if nothing else, I'm learning different techniques.



Take 2

I received my business cards & magnets in the mail the other day. They were not ideal but hey...they were free! The problem now? Thanks to a stroke of genius in the form of my mother, everything has changed. The domain name I wanted wasn't available so instead of picking a different one we threw in a "the" & I changed my blog name to http://www.theheycupcake.blogspot.com/ & my e-mail theheycupcake@aol.com . So now my domain name,e-mail and blog names are all the same.
Still not seeing the problem? The business cards & magnets have the wrong information on them now.
Thankfully, http://www.vistaprint.com/ had this fabulous sale where they not only had free products, but free shipping as well. FREE! So new business cards, magnets and stickers (remember the free part?) have been ordered. Now hopefully they get here in time for my first client.