Last year as I globbed not-quite-red-enough icing onto my {second} attempt at a tractor cake for my son’s second birthday party I muttered through gritted teeth: “I am only buying DQ ice cream cakes from now on.”

Well, in a couple years I may do that.  But this was my daughter’s first birthday party and I still wanted something special.  I just didn’t want to kill myself over creating some crazy fancy cake that I think moms are supposed to make.  And I didn’t want to work with cake moulds or icing again.  *shudder* 

So I made cupcakes (from a mix) and tinted store bought icing.  But for the tops I had an idea… I’d take Starburst candies and make them into little candy roses to decorate the cupcakes.

It was super hot and humid on the evenings I made these so I was able to shape them by just pressing on them with my fingers.  However, if your candies are a bit harder, or your house is cooler, you may want to pop them in the microwave (only a few at a time) for 5-10 seconds to soften them up.  After you do that, you can unwrap them.

And squish them flat

so that they’re thin and delicate, but not too flimsy.

Then tear off a little piece.

And roll it with your fingers

Until you get a neat little spiral.  This is the centre for your rose.

Then tear off more little pieces. You may want to smooth the ripped edges a bit.  The pieces should be sort of oval-shaped.  But if they’re irregular they actually look best, and more like rose petals.

Then wrap the petals, one by one, around the spiral centre.  Squish the bottom of each petal to the base of the flower.

Make sure there is some separation between the petals - I like to flare the tops of each petal out a bit.

And just keep adding petals, overlapping them slightly, all around the flower until you’ve used up the whole Starburst piece.

And there you go!

I laid them out on wax paper keeping them from touching,  They can be a bit sticky when you’re working with them, and when they’re warm they can be a bit melty.  But after you let them sit for a minute they harden up and are smooth.  I stored mine in the freezer until I was ready to put them on the cupcakes.

(The top cupcake in the picture below was made from three Starburst candies.)

Cute, eh?  It’s pretty easy once you have the hang of it.  You could do this with help from a  couple friends, or do what I did: sit down and watch a good show in the evening and work on them.

Just remember to factor in some extras, because you might happen to eat a few in the process.

Amidst all the busy-busy these days I’m having fun planning Little M’s first birthday party.  We decided to make it a family-only affair since it makes no difference to him, and our apartment’s so small.  However, “just family” still equals… umm… let me do the math here… 23 people.  Yikes.  

We’re going to have a Saskatchewan Roughider themed party.  If you’re a blogreader from outside of our lovely province, I’ll tell you they’re our local football team in the Canadian Football League. And the people around here (including us) are a little nuts over the team.  This works well since, besides presents and cake, there’s not much to do at a one-year-old’s birthday party, and we can all watch the game!

These are the invitations.  I modelled them after this season’s tickets.  This year is the football team’s 100th anniversary, so each game’s ticket has a Rider legend pictured on the top.  In the place of that on our tickets is my gorgeous little boy wearing his Rider jersey!  The team’s stadium is actually called “Taylor Field”, so that works well for us, and the number beneath the barcode is his actual birthday.

Now I just need to start designing the birthday cake! :)

And doesn’t this little Bruiser look like he should have a football birthday party?