Well that worked out...

We had a birthday party and a school picnic yesterday.  That meant two things:  1) I had to wrap a present; and 2) I needed to make cupcakes!  I wasn't feeling super motivated and didn't want to go to the store so that meant using whatever we had on hand.

Part I:  We didn't have any tissue paper or wrapping paper or ribbon or gift bags.  I did have the very cute bag from buying the book and some garden string... oh and tape (a small miracle considering how quickly my girl goes through the stuff!)... so that helped get things started.  Once the book was wrapped, I decided it needed some sprucing up so I added a few wooden beads to the string and found some flowers to add. Voila... the gift was wrapped in a way that made me smile!

Part II:  I had the basics for making carrot cupcakes, but didn't have big cupcake papers or cream cheese.  I did have a million miniature cupcake papers (go figure!) and some heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar.  Maybe this is common knowledge, but I'd never made frosting with heavy cream and powdered sugar (and a little vanilla too!).  When you whip it up (like you're making whipped cream), it makes the fluffiest frosting... and it was tasty too (as tasty as frosting that isn't cream cheese frosting can be at any rate).  I did a pretty terrible job piping it onto the cupcakes (the added sugar flower/star things didn't help the aesthetic much), but it was good enough and most importantly, I didn't have to drive to the store.  A win-win in my book!