owl cupcake toppers

I love cupcakes! Especially ones that are fluffy and not too sweet. We had some delicious mini ones this weekend from Hotcakes Bakes, a bakery we'd driven past many times but never stopped in.

I really liked the mint chocolate chip one, which tasted just like an Andes candy, and the strawberry one, which reminded me of a strawberry shortcake Good Humor ice cream bar. Turns out the bakery actually won Cupcake Wars last year, and with good reason.

I recently decided I'd also like to try making my own cupcake toppers. They're all the rage these days and there are many cute ones available for purchase, but...why not make your own? And why not make it with other crafty peeps? So I hosted a cupcake toppers swap recently on Swap-Bot, in which participants were invited to make a dozen toppers specifically for their partners.

My partner Bobbi in Kansas really likes owls, and since the ones I'd chosen for the swap graphic were ones I'd banned (darn!) I had to find something else to use. I came across some vintage cards with charming owl illustrations and printed them out to make a set of Halloween cupcake toppers, mounting them on scalloped colored cardstock and using plain wooden toothpicks.

They were so much fun to make that I had to do another set..this time using cheery owl Valentines I shrank down from style crush. They were paired with multi-colored toothpicks and backed with plain white cardstock to be used as cute Valentine cupcake toppers (or really, for any sweet occasion). Both sets were packaged in clear cello bags and fastened with a personalized packet label. I hope Bobbi enjoys them.

This was such an easy and fun project to do, so I think there will definitely be more cupcake topper-making in my future. Which means that there will also be...more cupcakes!