You Take the Cupcake!

My daughter Annie's birthday party (a bit belated!) was on Friday night. She really wanted to decorate cupcakes with her friends, which they did--and they had a ball! My Mom had given me the gift of the beautiful silver cupcake rack, which we displayed them on, and they looked so beautiful, I had to take a few pictures:

Since I stayed up late with the girls (out of their way, of course!) I felt inspired to "cook up" a different kind of cupcake! I love the yummy vintageness of these Pink Persimmon stamps--they recently released a few with a cupcake-y theme, and they're just wonderful! Here's what I came up with:



The stamp sets I used are (all Pink Persimmon): Vintage Cupcake, Vintage Greetings, and Sweet Greetings. I used my new favorite Papertrey cardstock--white, Aqua Mist and Sweet Blush. Also used a cute polkadot print from Me & My Big Ideas, the Baby Girl stack. Used Brilliance Graphite Black and Rangers' Vintage Photo for my inks, and just embellised with lots of ribbon, pompom trim & rickrack. I glittered up the frosting and the cherry with Inkssentials' Glossy Accents and Dazzling Diamonds. Glittered-up the sides with my favorite silver glitter and a glue pen. I have some adorable glass bead flowers & leaves, which I used for decorating the cupcake, with a little crystal rhinestone in the center of the flower. That's about it! Kept me happy while staying up all night with some crazy girls!

Now to change the subject completely....!

My oldest daughter, Chelsea, is away at college right now--I miss her terribly! But, I know she's in a great place and very happy with her friends and working hard--so I wouldn't want it any other way. She looked at my blog the other day and commented that she felt like the missing child! Well, I couldn't let that happen, so here's a picture I took of Chelsea the last time I saw her before I left for home. You can see how happy she is with these other beautiful girls--a wonderful group--we're just missing one here, who I met later, but this is almost the entire group. My daughter is on the far right.


The other day, we decided to bake her favorite cookies for her & sent them off Tuesday morning. They arrived on Friday, and she called me to say how excited she was, etc. I hadn't been very good about sending her care packages last year, so I'm vowing to be better this year!

These cookies are just about our favorites ever, so I thought I'd share the recipe with all of you. It's supposed to be a variation of a Mrs. Fields' recipe, but who knows! I've changed it up a bit from the original recipe I received over 20 years ago, and here's how we make it:

1 lb. butter--NO margarine! And yes, one pound!!!
2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 Tbsp. vanilla
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
6 cups flour
1 pkg. chocolate chips
1 pkg. butterscotch chips
1 pkg. white chocolate chips
A few handfuls of oatmeal--just shake a bunch in!

My family isn't big on nuts, but they'd be wonderful, too.

Cream the butter and sugar. Then, just add the rest, flour last. I usually end up having to mix it up with my hands because there's so much flour. Make good-sized balls--can put more than a dozen on a cookie sheet because these really don't spread--they end up nice, fat balls of goodness!

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. I always go with 8 minutes, and they're absolutely perfect! They stay soft on the inside for as long as they last--which won't be long!

Here's a picture of them--we only had 4 left when I took this, but here they are:

I did a big variation once, and they were delicious! Had a bunch of bananas WAY past their prime, and was about to toss them, when this idea popped into my mind, so I gave it a go, and it was so worth it! Here's what I changed:

5 small very ripe bananas
only 1/2 lb. butter
lots of oatmeal
1 large pkg. vanilla pudding--I used the non-instant kind
I just added a big bag of chocolate chips to this one--

Enjoy!