Cupcakes {frog and birds}

My middle monkey had a birthday party this weekend.  Because of that I wasn't able to review any crafts but I can show you these cute cupcakes I made and tell you how you can too.  First let me warn you, I am not a professional, nor have I ever taken any decorating classes.  I really want to take classes and I have hinted to my husband for years that signing me up for a class and watching our monkeys while I go would be a great gift, but it has never happened.
Anyways since the party was centered around animals I made animal cupcakes.  I was going to do a bunch of different animals but this project was slightly larger than I expected so I only made frogs and parrots. I also made faces of the birthday girls (there was another little girl whose b-day was the day after my daughter so we decided to combine their parties.)  Here is what they looked like.

I am pretty happy with them. I got the idea from ChicaandJo over here.   I wanted to do animals that we would have at the party though so I made my own templates.  I just searched through clip art for images I liked then I printed them off at a size to fit the cupcakes.  Here is the parrot image I used.

Simple lines was the key for me.  I then traced that image onto parchment paper so it wouldn't stick to my fondant. Speaking of fondant I am one who loves how it decorates but I hate how it taste so I decided to try my hand at making it homemade.  It tasted much better.  Here is the recipe.
After I drew the image onto the paper and cut it out  I traced the image onto my fondant with a food marker. (note the parrot was three separate tracings and I formed the beak by hand since it was to small to trace and cut out.)

I then used a sharp paring knife to cut the images out.

Now that looks really rough and messy I know but flip it over and use your fingers to smooth out the edges.

Much better right.    Now just use a LITTLE bit of water to glue pieces together, rather they be eyeballs or feathers.  Let it dry for awhile.  The more water you use the longer it will take to dry.  (Brilliant I know)  But it will take an hour at least.  And for your finishing touches use your food marker to add details.  Eyes, smiles etc.

See they turned out pretty cute right.  Well at least my 3 yr old loved them.  

 Happy Baking!

P.S.  Remember the ruffle dresses from last week, well here it a quick photo of them on my monkeys.