Holiday Party Idea: Pink + Green Cupcakes

Make cupcakes for your holiday party this year! Update the classic Christmas colours with a party blaster of light pink, a fresh raspberry for contrast and green cupcake liners. Totally cute, totally party time and a nice modern feel.Find me elsewhere this week: Check out my post I wrote for Craftsy on how a blog may help your cake business! As you know,I'm a blog lover and fanatic - but along the way it's really helped Coco Cake Land grow! Plus my favourite holiday DIYs of the week: Sparkly sweet DIY geometric pastel garlands from La Maison De Loulou.This adorable and majorly simple gold triangle garland from Almost Makes Perfect!The cutest mini boxwood wreath DIY via Poppytalk. The most gorgeous photos of Linda's soft gingerbread cake with creamcheese frosting over at Call Me Cupcake - these photos will make you cry deep, beautiful Christmas tears, they're so lovely!Happy weekend, everyone!xo Lyndsay 

DIY ABC Stencil Cake + More Cakey Times

Loving this super cute, bright and cheery ABC stencil cake I made over at Handmade Charlotte! Perfect for a kiddo's birthday party - make 'em learn while they're eating their cake, right?

This is a fun post I wrote for Craftsy on how to use social media for your cake business! I hope you find some fun and jazzy tips in it. Let me know what you think! As I'm sure you know, I think social media is just too much fun - I love interacting with new friends and cake fans. I've met a lot of great people through it and I encourage you to use it for any type of business or just for pleasure.

I also wrote a post on Finding Your Niche within the cake design world - however, I think it can apply to all aspects of art and design! Check out my Craftsy post on Finding Your Niche here.

A few more posts for Craftsy:

Illustration based cakes - I am in love with some of these awesome drawing and illustration inspired cakes. Reminds me of my graphic novel/comic hoarding days.

Vintage Cake Design: Birdcage cakes. You'll be blown away by some of these birdy cutie beauties!

Plus, my super cute JOY silver fringe letter DIY and peppermint buttercream cake is featured on Poppytalk's 10 Festive Party Cake Ideas - click through to see all the MEGA cute holiday themed cake ideas she's rounded up for your holiday fetes. I have so many already on my Coco Cake Land Pinterest boards!

Happy Friday, everyone! Are you getting in the holiday swing of things yet?? 

xo Lyndsay

Cupcake photos by Amy Pelletier. All other photos by me! :)

Pretty Pink Ruffle Mini Cupcakes

Here in Vancouver, the days are getting colder, the air crisp and the sidewalks slippery with a layer of icy frost. Can you believe December is on its way? Still, my winter pansies are blooming and the oven's on full blast practically every day. Baking, photographing, writing and then chomping away at my cake props.

Flowers in winter seem like such a luxury. It's nice to grow some even in the cold. 

Dark chocolate mini cupcakes with vanilla buttercream tinted the lightest ballerina tulle pink and dusted with teensy rainbow sprinkles. The cupcakes are so little I ate one with a sugar bowl teaspoon.

Happy Monday, cake pals!

xo Lyndsay 

Raindrop and Cloud Cupcake Toppers

File under: easy town. I am in love with the idea of funny, original and possibly silly birthday party themes - how about a weather themed party? Raindrop and cloud garland, a pinata made to look like a big ball of sun, cloud cookies and these simple raindrop and cloud cupcake toppers.

Find the whole raindrop and cloud cupcake topper DIY over on Handmade Charlotte.

What was your most successful party theme? Do tell -and leave me a link to your party - I wanna see! :)

xo Lyndsay

Drawing Is Fun: Handmade Custom Cake Toppers

I've been really loving working on hand drawn cake toppers lately for my cakes - I like it because it's something no one else can recreate, making them original and fun- and boy, colouring really provides me with some stress-relieving joy! I should invest in some colouring books... 

This adorable set of yellow umbrella and raindrop buddies was created for Lauren's baby shower, hosted by her sisters Alissa and Naomi! I loved the yellow umbrella theme - a fresh and fun baby shower theme, don't you think? Alissa provided me with the invite and I created the toppers based around the umbrella theme. How cute are those blue drip drop cake topper buddies? Heehee!






Here's a super cute set of cake toppers to match a custom pirate cake I made for adorable Graydon's 5th birthday party! The neon parrot cake topper made me chuckle. I kind of want to make a parrot cake now. This is nuts, too - I made an awesome Where The Wild Things Are cake for Graydon for his very first birthday party - and now he's five! Where does the time go?

I adore how the custom toppers bring a cake to life. I loved making these cute little vintage-look ice skating buddies for sweet River's birthday cake. I made River a cupcake train cake a few years ago for his 5th birthday! I wanted to go ice skating and was craving hot chocolate with mini marshmallows instantly after drawing them. Gad, I'm impressionable! Doesn't the cake look extra billowy and "snowy" with the addition of the ice skaters? :)

And of course this cutie red fox playing the guitar for my good friend Miko's daughter Saya's birthday, based on an image in one of her favourite books. I can hear the plink and plunk of the acoustic guitar right now... 

Ahh, too much fun! I love being able to offer something unique and cute, and something I really love doing - I've been drawing since I was a little kid. It's nice to be able to sit down and draw again. I forget I can do that after a long day of chasing after Teddy and baking, photographing and blogging in between!

Interested in ordering a set of custom hand drawn cake toppers? I can mail them worldwide. Email me at lyndsay (at) cococake.com for more info. 

Happy Tuesday, cake pals! Chat soon.

xo Lyndsay

Raspberry Glacé Rosewater Cupcake Icing

I'm in love with this simple and pretty combination ... vanilla cupcakes baked in silver cupcake liners with raspberry rosewater glacé style icing. Classy times, guys.

RASPBERRY ROSEWATER ICING 

You will need: 

1 1/4 cup icing sugar
3 tablespoons of raspberry juice
a teensy amount of rosewater (it is a very powerful flavour - I used about 1/16th of a teaspoon!)

Make it!

Stir the juice into the sugar until combined. Add the rosewater. Thin out with more juice or thicken with more icing sugar as needed. When making your cupcakes, spoon only a small amount (2 tablespoons) into the cupcake liner. This will leave room for the icing.

Once the cupcakes cool, spoon the icing on top of the cupcakes and spread to the edges of the cupcake liner. Top with a rose petal or sugar flower.

Have you worked with glacé style icing before? What is your favourite thing to glaze? I love the drippy look of it on anything! Especially donuts... I can't wait to make donuts with some extreme drippy glaze-iness and sprinkles power.

Happy baking, cake pals!

xo Lyndsay

How To Style A Cake For Photography

Hi blog buddies! You all know I write for Craftsy, yes? I wanted to share with you a post I wrote on fun tips for styling your cakes and desserts for photo shoots. Check out my article with some fun tips and examples of how to style cake photos here! 

Are you a blogger? What's your take on photography for your blog - do you find the recipes or writing more important, or are you a lover of photography like me? I am constantly learning and experimenting with my cake photos - but most of all I think it's such a fun part of cake-making!

See you soon, cake pals!

xo Lyndsay

Mini Monster Eyeball Cupcakes DIY

Countdown to Halloween is totally on! For simple and cute cupcakes to bring to work or school on Halloween day, you can slam together these hairy eyeball cupcakes in no time flat! 

You'll need some colourful cupcake liners (I used orange) and a piping bag fitted with a multi-opening tip and filled with a bright colourful buttercream colour. I also made simple eyeballs from fondant and some mini sharp "teeth", too. Find the full monster cupcakes DIY over on my post on Craftsy!

These guys could totally be the weird offspring to my mutant bunny cake DIY I made for Handmade Charlotte, too!

Happy baking, pals!

xo Lyndsay 

Scaredy Cat Cake Topper DIY

Meowrrr! These scaredy cat cake toppers are simple to make and super cute, too - and they will instantly Halloween-ize your cupcakes or cake. Bake some cupcakes in orange liners, or plunk one of these cat toppers in a simple store bought cake and your Halloween party is all set in the blink of a cat's eye. 

 

Find the whole scaredy cat cake topper tutorial over at my guest post on Poppytalk! 

So what about you... Do you have any Halloweeny plans or costume ideas? Or are you a Halloween scrooge? Gah, I don't have a costume yet but at least Teddy will have a choice of cute hand me downs from his cousins - pink owl, pink cat or spotty dog? Thinking of laying them down on the floor and letting him choose (ie drool on) his favourite... 

See you soon, cake pals!

xo Lyndsay

How To Ice A Cupcake - 6 Designs

An icing style is like a hairstyle - ponytail, perm, straight, bangs, short cut, undercut, mohawk! Here are six different ways to instantly style and change up your cupcake frosting! The full tutorial is over on my post at Craftsy! What's your favourite way to ice a cupcake? 

Find Coco Cake Land elsewhere this week:

My post on awesome airbrushed cakes on Craftsy!

Sensational silver cakes! 

Happy Friday, dear readers! Back on Monday with more cakey bloggy goodness for you!

xo Lyndsay