A Glitter Sprinkled Cupcake Birthday Card

This past week, it was my friend Katherine's 29th Birthday. I recently have been in a little cupcake phase, especially from Sugar Sweet Sunshine in NYC, so I thought that for Kat's birthday card, I would design a cute cupcake. As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm going to be starting to show some of the initial sketches for some of the cards and invitations that I make.

I started out by drawing out a simple cupake with two layers of frosting on top. I thought of putting numbered candles on the top of the cupcake, but in the end, I decided to go with a simple lit candle. As you can see, my writing is pretty illegible when I think I'm the only one who's going to be needing to read it. I might make things a bit neater now that I know I'll be taking more photos of these sketches in the future.

Once I began creating the cupcake in Illustrator, I decided to add in a bit of purple into the cupcake along with the original pink and brown. I hand glittered the first layer of frosting so it looked like it was sprinkled with sanding sugar. I also hand-glittered a purple flower on the side of the cupcake and on the back of the card, along with the candle and flame. The card was personalized with "Kat" on the cupcake liner and was printed on pearlescent white metallic cardstock. The metallic brown envelope matched the chocolate cupcake, and I hand-lettered "Katherine" in white ink.

Doesn't this card make you want to unwrap the cupcake and eat it? I loved using multiple colors for the hand-glittered elements, and will probably try to do that more often in my upcoming designs. If you would like me to design a card for your friend's upcoming birthday, email me at info@pinkorchiddesigns.com.

~Emilie

Cupcakes! Perfect for a wedding dessert station!

Cupcakes bring back lots of memories for me. I specifically remember always loving my birthdays in elementary school, because my mom would always bring a huge box of chocolate cupcakes from the local grocery store, so my classmates could all celebrate with a tasty treat. No knives, forks, or plates needed. Just two little hands around one big cupcake, and I felt like a cupcake queen.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in New York City and had the opportunity to try some mini cupcakes from Crumbs Bake Shop. It was a variety pack of 12 different flavors, and I immediately thought that this would be such a fun and colorful display for a wedding dessert station! The flavors were everything from chocolate chip mint, to oreo, to marshmallow, to coffee, to strawberry swirl, and they were all delicious!

New York City definitely has a lot of cupcake shops, such as Crumbs and Sugar Sweet Sunshine, but how about something more local around Boston?

Well, Boston is in luck! Sweet is a charming bakery that bakes fresh and gorgeous cupcakes each morning. They have one location in the Back Bay, and just opened up a new location in Harvard Square.

photos from Sweet

Aren't these the perfect little wedding cupcakes? I think any guest would love to see a table filled with these delicately decorated treats.

~Emilie