jungle cupcakes - take 2 & 3

Jungle cupcakes, take 2: These were for a friend of a friend's 1st birthday party. Since I try not to use fondant, I used only buttercream & some candy eyes (a small cheat).

sample of theme I was trying to match:

cute, right?

Jungle cupcakes, take 3: These were a friend's daughter's 1st birthday, 3 flavors. This time I made candy animals, which with different backgrounds kinda wins me over from straight buttercream animals. Love these!

Matching the theme:

jungle cupcakes - take 1

These were the first cupcakes I did that were labor intensive design-wise. They were definitely ones that helped me decide I woudl love to do this full time. They were for a colleague's baby shower at MySpace. Those MySpacers sure did get a lot of cupcakes to taste - I used to make them all the time & bring in for taste testing!

I made the animals out of melting chocolates & edible marker. They took forever, but hey, it was a learning exercise. This was before I had a toddler, obviously!

Final product:

The palm trees are royal icing & pretzels.