Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

I have been wanting to make these cupcakes for quite a while, but wanted to wait for the warm weather....well it's warm! Actually, I'd say it's borderline hot. I decided to make them for our Memorial Day picnic :-)

 I had a few recipes to choose from, but decided to go with this one from Saturday's Sweets because it was semi-homemade and I didn't have a lot of time. The recipe made a ton of icing, but with the concentrate,  it melted a lot faster than usual. Tasted yummy, though!

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

CAKE:

• 1 package white cake mix
• 1 small package vanilla instant pudding
• 3 Tbsp sweetened pink lemonade drink mix (like Country Time Pink Lemonade mix)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 3/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup oil
• 4 whites eggs (save the yolks for tomorrows recipe)
• 6 drops of pink food coloring

FROSTING:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• Zest from 1 lemon
• 2 pound package  or 7 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 3 drops of pink food coloring

1. In a large bowl, whisk cake mix, pudding mix, and drink mix together.  Add sour cream, lemon zest, water, oil, and egg whites to the dry mix. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed for about two minutes. Use a strong mixer, this batter is thick.
2. Scoop batter into 24 lined muffin tins.  Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes until cupcakes don’t look wet and a toothpick inserted in one comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting the cupcakes.
3. Prepare the frosting by creaming butter, shortening, and lemon zest together. Then add lemonade concentrate, milk and vanilla with a mixer. Beat until smooth.  Then gradually add the sugar, mixing well until light and fluffy. Beat in the food coloring.
4. Pipe frosting onto the cupcakes.  (You will have plenty to pile it on.  I had over 1 cup leftover.  Leftover frosting is good sandwiched between two graham crackers).  Place a lemon candy wedge on top of each cupcakes.  With the straws cut the top 1/3 of the straw off just below the flexible part.  Discard the tops.  Then cut the remaining straw pieces in half.  Place one straw piece in each cupcake to resemble a drink.

 I was able to make 24 regular cupcakes and 16 minis. Look how cute the tiny ones are!

Pretty Pink Piggies

When I finished my faux make up from my last post...which I have to say is super addicting to make, I decided to try some other ideas that had been floating around my crazy brain recently. Some of them worked, others didn't. This one turned out so awesome!

Too bad I forgot to take a final photo! haha Oh well. My lovely cousin was kind enough to send some my way, thanks cuz! :-) 

So to make my fake nail polish, I started with a pre-bling-ified bottle of polish I was never going to use again. Pretty, but not for me. 

 

I emptied the bottle in the trash to get the bulk of the polish out, and then poured a little nail polish remover inside. Within a few swishes, it was almost done! Cool beans. 

 

Now take off all the stickers...you may need a little Goo Gone. I just used some nail polish remover, worked like a charm. I forgot by the end, but I wanted to put her little initial on the top of the brush. That would have been cute. Oh well. Next time.

 Ahh, nice and clean. Now to choose a color...

For this girlie girl, nothing but pink will do. She is sparkles and glitter to the core. I knew I loved this girl from the start. :-) For the brush, I used puffy paint...just globbed it on and smoothed it out. Nothing fancy.

Now, this is the part I don't have a picture of, but you can kind of see it in the one below...I wanted the bottle itself to be pink as well so I put a few drops of pink acrylic paint inside and shook it up. It looked awesome, very realistic. I let it dry for a few weeks (read: I put it on the window sill and forgot about it once I closed the curtain) but it was still wet inside!! Seriously?! I guess they make the glass so the polish doesn't stick to it..I'm not sure why I thought the paint would work. So plan B. Easter grass! I took each piece and individually stuffed it into the tiny opening until it was a nice color. It worked really well and there was enough color that you knew what it was supposed to be.

Here's the little set. I'm really happy with how it came out...and I think she is too!

I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Make-up

My cousin's little girl absolutely loves playing with make up. Last year, the Easter Bunny brought her some plastic play cosmetics, but little Avery wasn't buying it. She knew they were fake, and wanted the real deal! Smart girl! Well, I had seen a post on Playing House about making realistic fake eye shadow and decided to give it a try. 

So I had one of these laying around...ok, ok I have a ton of them.

I thought it would be perfect because it was mostly black and I could personalize it when it was all done. The first thing I did was clean out the old eyeshadow. 

 After I got it all out, I rinsed the compact with soap and water, and I was left with a nice blank canvas.

 

 Next, I used the metal to outline the piece of foam to be cut. I used adhesive backed foam, just for convenience...but you could certainly use regular foam and glue. 

I cut out several different colors and glued them in to the empty spaces. It came out pretty darn cute! And I think the little one approved!

Come back tomorrow to see how I did the nail polish!