I love party planning so a friend recently gave me a baking/cookbook called Best of Family Fun Cooking & Parties. I’m not a very crafty person, so I like that the recipes included in the book seem very simple (and doable). I wanted to try recipes from the book, and I finally had my opportunity today - I decided to make cupcakes that look like Easter baskets since Easter is in couple of weeks. And I must say, I’m very proud of the way they turned out! I found all the ingredients at the local Walmart. Here is a “before” picture of all the items/ingredients that I used.

I ended up not using the green shavings that are pictured (I didn’t like how they tasted) and it turned out we didn’t need the jelly beans.

Here’s how I made them: I baked the cupcakes, then frosted them with white icing. After that, I used Wilton Mini Egg Mix Sprinkles to make the cupcakes look like they have grass and eggs (the recipe called for coconut shavings with green food coloring but I do not like coconut and the sprinkles were a great substitute). After that, I cut the fuzzy sticks in half and placed them in the cupcakes to make them look like handles. And finally, I tied the ribbons into bows around the handles. And voila! It was seriously as simple as it sounds:

In the meantime, I also found a “Color Your Own Marshmallow Eggs” Kit at Walmart.

I figured this would be something fun I could try with my son - dying eggs are tricky with a three year old and I thought that marshmallows would be easier for him. And it turned out to be a big hit. The kit was inexpensive, and included the dye as well as the marshmallows. I highly recommend it for those of you with younger children.

Needless to say, it was a fun (and delicious) afternoon!