Ahh, the first day of spring is here! It’s been a long winter so it’s time to celebrate the change of seasons!
While my hubby and kids were away at work and school today, I set up our first annual Spring It On celebration. I love to plan surprises for them, and I’m so happy to have time for it now that I’m a stay-at-home mom.
I started by making a quick spring banner for our living room fireplace. I chose scrapbook paper in three festive designs and cut two circles from each pattern. For the circles, I traced around my cute little spring candy bowl from the Target dollar spot.
For the letters, I used my alphabet stencil cards from Hobby Lobby and sponge painted them with Folk Art acrylic paint in metallic peridot. It seemed like the perfect spring green. After I hung it from our fireplace mantle on a thin white ribbon, I was happy with the festive touch for the living room.Next I gathered up the tissue paper pom pom flowers that I made for a birthday party last year. They match my daughter’s room, so they’ve been hanging from her ceiling. For today, the spring celebration demanded something fun – and fast – to dress up the dining room.Finally, I made flower cupcakes. I was inspired by sunflower cupcakes a friend’s daughter made recently. I’m not an expert decorator, so I wasn’t sure how they would turn out – but I figured if a 14-year-old girl could do it, I could at least try!
I made the cupcakes from a mix and then placed one side of an Oreo in the center of each cupcake when they cooled.
While they were cooling, I whipped up a batch of my favorite buttercream frosting. I loved the yellow sunflower cupcakes that inspired this dessert, but I didn’t have yellow food coloring on hand so I had to make my frosting flowers pink. I pulled out my Wilton dessert decorator and attached the leaf tip to make the petals.
Although I’ve had this decorating tool for a long time, I’m still not super handy making the pretty decorating effects with it. It’s trial and error each time I pull it out. Plus I didn’t have time to chill the frosting in the refrigerator for long, and it was a little too runny. My cupcakes were generally identifiable as flowers, but far from perfect!
That’s OK. The cupcakes were yummy anyway. I’ll just have to try again when I have more time to dedicate for decorating them.
Everyone was happy with the impromptu spring celebration. I’ve decided to make it an annual event to kick off my favorite season – spring! Do you have family traditions to welcome spring?
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