Fourth of July FUN!

It's never too late! At least that's what I was telling myself this afternoon when I decided to make a little tablescape {amateur at best} for the 4th of July.

I decided to bake cupcakes off something I found on Pinterest as well as sugar cookies. Since I got off work early I figured I'd have plenty of time before the barbeque we're attending tomorrow...... Well, I was right. I did have enough time. But it actually took a lot longer than I thought! Regardless, I'm super please with how it turned out & look forward to showing it off to my friends tomorrow.

First up on the agenda, the red, white & blue cupcakes! Here are the ingreidents for my baking festivities:

I mixed the white cake batter according to the directions {exception, I opt for the lower fat option by using unsweetened apple sauce instead of oil}. A little tip that I learned from a friend is after you mix the batter together, preheat the oven and have the batter sit with a kitchen towel covering the bowl for about 5-7 minutes. I'm not sure what it does, but it'll produce the moistest cakes!

1) Then I separated the cake batter and color one section red & left the other section white. Then I needed to pour it into my cupcake pan one color on top of the next.
2) First I poured the red batter into the pan, then pour the white batter in so it would be red-white-blue {frosting coming soon}. 

While those cupcakes were baking, I also started making the sugar cookies I saw on Pinterest. These, however, didn't turn out as great as I hoped. I think it's because I used too much food coloring. NOTE TO SELF: Start small, you can always add more later! LOL
 
The batter came together nicely and the cookies were super easy to make but I think I would have liked it better if there were more swirls of color versus completely blue. You know?!

The cupcakes were done by the time the cookies were ready to go in. And without missing a beat {I told you this last minute activity took longer than I original anticipated} I started making the cupcake toppers. I forgot to print out some cute holiday printables from online, so I wanted to make some myself.

I took a stencil I bought at Michaels and drew it out with red and blue Sharpies. Then I colored in some, did stripes, polka dots {love my polka dots}, plaid, etc. And then it was time for the frosting on my cupcakes. Remember the cake batter itself was red and white, so the frosting needed blue! This time, learning from the sugar cookie note, I used smaller doses of food coloring and got a great mixture. Take a look at the final product!

As you can see my little DIY cupcake toppers didn't turn out too shabby if I say so myself. Best part? FREE! After about 4 hours I'm finally done with the treats for tomorrow which is great because I'm looking forward to just laying out by the pool and relaxing on my day off! ;)

How about you? Any fourth of July plans?! Enjoy the holiday!