Sprinkles Will Fly Cupcake Couture Blog Party

4th of July Tie Dye Swirl Cupcakes!

With the 4th of July right around the corner, what is better than these easy to make gorgeous tie dye swirl cupcakes?! :)

First off a big thank you to Carrie from Bella Cupcake Couture and Betsy from JavaCupcake & Cupcake Takes the Cake who invited me to participate again in another cupcake blog party! I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I LOVE cupcakes! This time our blog party is going to celebrate the upcoming holiday! And of course for a giveaway too! (enter below for a chance to win!)

I love to make things from scratch: cookies, cakes, cupcakes-- any baked good. But this time we went with simple and fast. I was able to whip these cupcakes up quickly and they were a big hit! They would the perfect dessert for a 4th of July party/cookout :)

To make these awesome and creative 4th of July Tie Dye Swirl Cupcakes all you need is a box of white cake (plus all the ingredients needed) and some food coloring (all natural food coloring could be used as well)!

I mixed up the batter with the ingredients (I did add a splash of vanilla as well) and separated the batter into three bowls. One bowl was "white" and I left uncolored. The other two bowls I added blue and red food coloring. To make a tie dye swirl I spooned a little bit of each color into the wrappers. Since one spoonful of each color wasn't enough to fill the cupcake wrappers, I kept alternating colors while I filled the wrappers. With a toothpick (this is where Eliana loved to help!) I swirled some of the colors together. The tops looked like this when they came out:

They came out so pretty!! And it was SO simple to make. Some of the wrappers got a bit bent up because my little helper in the kitchen took them out and put them in the cupcake pan herself! :) It really didn't matter though because we had these gorgeous cupcake wrappers to use!

 Carrie supplied these cupcake wrappers from Bella Cupcake Couture! They are absolutely gorgeous and I love how elegant they made my cupcakes :)

Using a Wilton 2D tip I topped the cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and some red, white and blue star sprinkles! This was another place where Eliana enjoyed helping :) These cupcakes were super easy to make and they look gorgeous! :)

Here is how the cupcakes looked on the inside! Every single cupcake looked slightly different, which made them even more special! :)

So Please take a look at every one of these blogs to see all the amazing cupcake wrappers for the 4th of July! Be sure to hop around to each blog and check them all out! :)

An American Cupcake in LondonA Pumpkin and A Princess
Bella Cupcake Couture
Chronicles of a Foodie
Creative Food
Cupcake Project
Cupcakes Take the Cake
Diary of a Mad Hausfrau
Haniela's
Hoosier Homemade
Hungry Happenings
In Katrina's Kitchen
Inside BruCrew Life
Java Cupcake
Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons
Love From the Oven
Make Bake Celebrate
Not Just a Mommy
Not Your Mommas Cookie
Pint Sized Baker
Sugar Swings! Serve Some
The Baking Cup
The Decorated Cookie
And also Enter below to try to win this awesome prize pack!! :)

Thanks to our amazing Prize Pack sponsors for their generous donations! Please, visit their websites to see more of their fabulous products!
Bella Cupcake Couture
The Smart Baker
India Tree
Lucks Food Decorating Company
Pretty Party Details
To enter to WIN this Prize Pack, simply fill out the entry form below. Contest opens June 25, 2013 at 7:00am PST and closes July 1, 2013 at 11:59pm PST. One winner will be chosen and announced within 48 hours of the contest ending. Winner will be contacted via email by betsy@javacupcake.com and will have 48 hours to claim their prize. If they do not respond within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen. This contest is open to residents worldwide.
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Fourth of July S'mores

Happy Fourth of July!!

This is totally a late and impromptu post, but I had to share what we made today! :) Plus I figure the celebrations continue through the weekend so it works! We made some Fourth of July Marshmallows and then made some s'mores :)

I found some inspiration from Meaghan at the decorated cookie for this treat! Ever since I stumbled onto her blog over a year ago (and was blown away by her awesomeness!) I was introduced to the idea of drawing on marshmallows. I had always wanted to try it but for some reason never got around to it until today. ((check out all of Meaghan's marshmallow creations here))

Everyone in the family joined in the fun for this! David made the flag on the bottom left and the stars up top.  Eliana made the top right one and I made the two bottom right marshmallows. It was so easy and fun, and of course tasty :)

Perfectly crispy-- just the way I like them!

All smooshed. Probably the only time I can say I smooshed an American Flag and ate it.

These would work perfect for Memorial Day too!

Hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July!!

I link up. Check it out!

Patriotic Bento

Happy Third Fourth of July!! (a day early hehe)

This lunch was very easy to make and Eliana loved it (and I love when that happens!)

The flag sandwich is an I M Healthy Creamy Soynut Butter With Honey sandwich. I cut the sandwich into a rectangle shape and ate the scraps. On top I placed sliced strawberries and string cheese for the stripes and blueberries in the corner.  The flag pole is the bread crust.

In the upper left are frozen peas (this lunch needed some green!) in some teeny tiny star silicone cups (they defrosted by the time Eliana ate her lunch, so she was slightly disappointed. She likes them actually frozen, which works out fine when we make lunch and eat it on the spot)

In the upper right Eliana had some vanilla yogurt topped with red, white and blue star sprinkles. 

All packed in an EasyLunchbox. If you are wondering if this lunch would travel well I will let you know that it traveled from MA to NJ and made it all intact! It made it safely in its EasyLunchboxes Insulated Cooler Bag. :) I probably will make a similar lunch for tomorrow so that we can take it wherever we are going.

My favorite part of the Fourth of July is watching the fireworks. I'm so thankful Eliana isn't scared of them anymore. We actually have already seen fireworks two times in the past week and a half and I'm excited to see some more!!

❈ Hope you all have a wonderful Fourth of July! :) ❈

I link up. Check it out!

Patriotic Star Lunch

*Today's post is part of a blog hop! Click on the 4th of July icon at the end of the post to take you to the next blog in our Patriotic Blog Hop!*

I made Eliana this Patriotic Star Lunch to celebrate the 4th of July:

This Patriotic Star Lunch was super easy! I made a very similar, almost identical, lunch for Eliana last July (shhhhh don't tell her) and she loved it both times! :)

The star is an I M Healthy Creamy Soynut Butter With Honey with extra honey (Eliana loves honey!) sandwich with a red bell pepper star on top.
The little stars are strawberries 
And to show the star "flying" I added blueberries :)

Eliana's new favorite PB substitute is I.M. Healthy Soynut Butter! It is very easy for us to find, and I'm liking it too! We have had a lot of fun trying all the PB substitutes and I'm just thankful that there are so many varieties and substitutes for us to even try :)

So head on over to the next blog (and the next, and the next) for over 20 awesome Patriotic themed creative food ideas!! Click on the 4th of July button to hop on over to What's In John's Lunch Bag! (the blog hop should be fully live by noonish!)

Creative Food Supplies:

Linking up here :)