An apple a day keeps the doctor away

I'm sick.

I spent my birthday lying on the sofa, surrounded by mountains of tissues, stinking of vicks, feeling sorry for myself, while drinking Benylin mucus. Even cupcakes didn't make me feel any better.

Perhaps these Apple for the Teacher cupcakes, from What's new Cupcake, the new book by the authors of Hello Cupcake would make me feel better - their cuteness certainly brought a smile to my face! They'd certainly provide a sugar rush - a cupcake topped with a doughnut!!

These books are choc full of great decorating ideas! As well as the Apple cupcakes, you can also preview how to make their Playing Koi cupcakes here.

All pics with thanks to What's New Cupcake.

Quick...follow that snail!

This plate by Takae Mizutani and Sons is just so cute and unusual - I love it!

Thanks to Domestic Sluts for pointing me in the direction of Hidden Art Shop.

How long till Easter?

So we've not even had valentines yet and I'm already encouraging you to start buying for your Easter cupcaking!

I spotted these in the new Lakeland mailout and I think they are super cute, especially with the fantastic chick cupcakes in them. Unfortunately they haven't included a recipe for the lovely cupcakes (some decorating tips would be good!) but you could check Hello, Cupcake or Wilton for decorating ideas. I found a couple of cupcake decorating suggestions in my Cupcake Fun book that could be great for these, I doubt I'll buy them though as I already have some happy feet silicone cases.

Available to buy online from Lakeland.

Just too cute

I already bought a cupcake diary but when I saw this one I just HAD to have it - too cute for words!

Available from Amazon.

Some recent (wee) cupcake purchases

From Next these cupcake cupcake shaped post it notes were a bargain 50p, and from Cards Galore these cute cupcake tissues (with actual cupcake covered tissues) were 95p.

It's cupcake o'clock

Ditsy Daisies is always teaming with lots of cupcake goodies, however all these little kitchen bits caught my eye tonight and I thought I'd share them with you!

All available from Ditsy Daisies (just type cupcake into the search!)

More Halloween/Cupcake goodies for me

My friend Dennis from Ann Arbour visited last month and came home with a HUGE bag of Halloween goodies for me, including the Martha Stewart cupcake cases I really wanted and blogged about previously.

He also brought me lots of other spooky cupcake cases and picks, decorating stencils and also a lovely cupcake stand - I'm aiming to make some cupcakes next week for Halloween to use these! My favourite thing, after the Martha cases, is the FAB skull silicone baking tray - I'll have to make some brownies or something in it asap.

Crumbs and Doilies Halloween cupcakes

are available to pre-order now and aren't they just the cutest Halloween cupcakes you've seen!

Think I may have to pre-order a munchbox although I'd prefer 6 big ones as then you get the spider, bat and skulls - maybe I should give them a ring and see if that's possible! Getting there on the day to pick them up may be a problem too as its our wedding anniversary on the Sat and we're meant to be out and about that day - maybe I'll order them to collect on the Friday and head over to C&D HQ -sounds fab :)

We’ll be selling our great Halloween Cupcakes by the dozen in big and mini sizes and there’s also our brand new Munchbox size (2 big and 9 mini cupcakes) for smaller gifts. All boxes will contain a spookily tasty mix of flavours including this month’s flavour of the month, ChocolateOrange, and are available on Friday 30th and Saturday 31st October.

That’s not all though - it being Halloween we’ve slashed the prices of our special Halloween Cupcakes to just £20/dozen for big cupcakes and £10/dozen for minis and munchboxes!

Orders will be available for delivery in Central and SW London or you can collect from C&D HQ near Wandsworth Town (Friday 11am-7pm and Saturday 10am-3pm), or from the Kings Road (Saturday only, 10am-3pm).

Thanks to C&D for use of their photo!

Never was a truer word spoken

(well written)

Thanks to the lovely Sherrie for sending me it on a bit of a miserable Sunday

Arrrrgh more Halloween Goodies

There are times when I wish I lived in America even more than normal, and one of those times is Halloween!! Americans really GO for Halloween - they have parades (including a dog parade - check out my lovely faves Mango and Miss Blanquita at last years Tompkins Square dogs parade), candy, haunted houses and TONNES of halloween cupcake goodies!

The Layer Cake shop is one of my favourite websites to drool over - they have an immense range of sprinkles, cupcake toppers, glitter, cupcake cases and just everything you need for cupcaking (and baking!). The site is so easy to use as well - you can choose by to shop by theme, colour or holiday - how great! They also ship internationally...expect to see some goodies from them on here soon. You can check out a their entire Halloween range here but I've included a few of my faves above, mainly toppers (including a glow in the dark skull and crossbones!) and the Halloween cupcake kit which I want!

Btw - Mango is Hugh Heffner and Blanquita is one of his bunnies :)

Freshly baked goodies from Johnny Cupcakes

I've loved Johnny Cupcakes for ages and ever since I got my first tshirt last month (Thank KK!!) I've been keeping an eye on the site more than ever to check for "freshly baked" goodies.

Recently Johnny's collaborated with Looney Tunes on some Tshirts however I've not fallen in love with them so much as they don't feature my favourite character - Marvin the Martin - I do like them but just prefer his own stuff really. And I'm loving the new goods added today, including a backpack, notebook, pencil AND for Halloween Johnny Cupcakes vampire teeth \m/

I cannot wait till he opens a London store!!! hint hint ;)

More cupcake mugs

On Saturday's shopping trip I also picked up a set of 4 cupcake mugs from Next - I'm on a crockery ban from my other half but these were just too pretty to resist, and a bargain at £7!!

(If the link doesn't work go to Next.co.uk and type cake into the search!)

Itsy bitsy spider cupcakes

Again from a link from HWTM, these spider cupcakes have to be some of the cutest cupcakes EVER!

You can get instructions on how to make them from Bright Ideas.

Some frightfully cute halloween cupcakes!

Prepare for lots of posts of cute Halloween cupcakes from me over the next few weeks as I love Halloween, which also happens to be my wedding anniversary :)

While perusing one of my fave sites, The Hostess with the Mostess, I came across a link to the Better Homes and Gardens site featuring loads of adorable (and spooky!) cupcakes! It gives you step by step instructions on how to decorate them - although if you're in the UK you may have to google some of the items used as its a US site.

I heart Paperchase

Saturday morning I was awoken at an ungodly hour as Manny was off to band practice so I decided to go up to Denmark Street with him and check out what other cupcake goodies I could pick up in Paperchase at their flagship store in Tottenham Court Road, following my recent discovery of their new cupcake range there.

I didn't buy everything in the range, but I picked up a couple of bits - including a little tote bag with two cupcakes and a coffee on the front and a lovely pair of bookmarks! I also got a couple of cute cards - think I'll frame the Hello Cupcake one and give the party animal one to someone for their birthday. 

Olympic Cupcakes

I'm not going to get into a giant discussion about whether the Olympics should be coming to London but all I'll say is if the Olympic Village were made of cake I may be swayed a little! 

This Olympic Village in cupcakes was made by Claire from the Arts and Culture team and I think it looks great - they represent all different parts of the village, including the River Lea with fish and crayfish decorations. You can even bake your own stadium cupcake using the recipe online! 

Thanks to Claire at the ODC for use of the pics

Paperchase goes cupcake crazy

It seems every time I go to Paperchase they have added to their cupcake items which makes me happy! On Thursday I popped into the Covent Garden store and picked up a few items - a media case for my Ipod, a foldable shopping bag (cute AND good for the planet!) and a utensil holder for my kitchen. 

They also had some egg-cups, key-covers, luggage labels and some other bits. I'm going to pop up to their flagship store on Tottenham Court Road this week and check out the rest of the range :)