As you can see from the past few posts, we had an owl theme for my daughters first birthday party.   One of my sweetest girlfriends offered to make some owl cupcakes for the big day.  Gwen & I are so very lucky.  (this is going to be her first cupcake)

Nicole found this cute owl cupcake idea on Pinterest and adapted it for Gwen’s birthday party colors.    Didn’t she do an AMAZING job!?  

I know that for some these types of cupcakes are easy to make.  Let me point out that Nicole’s not a professional baker and only does this once or twice a year.   Among many other talents, She’s really great coming up with creative themes for cupcakes & parties.  (Yes, she’s the same gal who made the festive choo-choo train cupcakes & painted Gwen a birdie print with the Basic Grey paper).   I am not good at baking or decorating cakes so I really appreciate the work that goes into this detailed craft. 

My husband baked 24 chocolate cupcakes and put a crème filling on the inside to keep them sweet & moist.     Then Nicole did all the beautiful owl design on the top.    Unfortunately I was setting up for the party and didn’t get any photos of her creating the cupcakes (I am SO bummed about this).  Here’s one photo (taken on my phone) after the crème was put inside  the cupcakes. 

She used teal blue & dark purple frosting for the top (took almost the entire tube of purple coloring to get it dark enough).  These were the perfect colors and looked so beautiful.    The eyes are M&M’s, the noose is an orange jelly bean and the feathers are white frosting.  

We ALSO had an owl cake to sit next to the little owl cupcakes.  I found this cute idea in Parenting Magazine a while back and then found the directions on their website.  Chris baked the cakes and Nicole did the beautiful designing for this cake too.    She was nervous to make this cake because of the chance it could tip over.  But I told her I’d worry about making it secure and all she had to do was the hard job of frosting it.   If it were to fall over it would be my fault.  She obliged and made this cute little lady with teal blue eyes. 

The cake is 4 separate cakes baked in round Pyrex bowls.  We didn’t have the size that was called for in the instructions so we used 1.5 quart bowels for the big one and the small one might be 120z like the recipe calls.  

Cakes while they were cooling overnight.  Chris shaved off the top to make them flat for the attachment of the two round parts. 

Chris put lots of frosting in the middle between the halves so they’d stick together.  Then he cut a wooden dowel to fit the height of the cakes.  The dowel goes right down the middle and keeps the owl together. 

Here’s the example cake from Parenting:

 

The owl cake was just for decoration, it looked really cute in the middle of the table at the party.  I’ll share the rest of the photos from the party so you can see everything all together later this week. 

Our baby girl did get a cupcake to celebrate the big ONE and she didn’t disappoint. She loved every sweet bite.   Here are a few photos for proof.

Excited to have us sing “Happy Birthday” to her and enjoyed the attention. 

Once she grabbed the cupcake she didn’t let it go.  Beautiful teal blue frosting all over her face!    I was amazed with how much she ate of the cupcake. 

Sharing a bite with grandpa.

Thank you Nicole & Chris for making these lovely cupcakes & cake for the birthday party!  They were wonderful.