Mister B's Cowboy Party::The Cupcakes & Decorations

Welcome to Gigi & Papa's Ranch!

Our house is way too {cozy} for all the friends and family that join us for Barrett's birthday celebration, so it's so nice that my parents let us have everyone to their house. Thanks, Mom & Dad!! I made this same birthday banner at Barrett's monkey party last year. This year, I used red and brown paper to back the pictures and tied them together with twine.

I think it's fun to have a guest book at birthday parties, so the guests can all write special messages to him. I still love to look back at last year's and see what was written.

I {love} making party favors. I like to keep them simple and edible! This year we made "Mister B's Trail Mix" for everyone to take home. I put the mix into cellophane bags, and tied the tags on with brown gingham ribbon.

::Mister B's Trail Mix::
pretzels, M&M's, mini marshmallows, raisins & Cheez-It Gripz

The trail mix for the kiddos was put into adorable little bandana-print boxes I found at Hobby Lobby. They had a great cowboy party section that matched my red/brown theme. (If you're planning a party, check out their party isles. It's not very big...but they have several theme sections, and all of the stuff is really cute and inexpensive) The sheriff badges are from the party favor section at Walmart.

::The cupcakes::

We made nine of the horses, for the kids.
If you're planning a cowboy/cowgirl party and would like to try these, our "process" is detailed at the end of this post.

For the adults, we just had regular chocolate cupcakes with red sprinkles and {2} toppers. I bought the paper for the toppers at Hobby Lobby, and my awesome sister-n-law, Kim, cut them all out for me on her Cricut! I would love to have one of those! Thanks so much, Mimi!!

The Birthday Boy waiting for his guests to arrive

::The cupcake making process::

I think it's safe to say the horse cupcakes were waaaayyyyy more intense than last year's monkeys!! We didn't start on them until Friday night after Barrett had gone to bed. I don't know why I didn't think to bake the cupcakes earlier that afternoon...too many things on my mind! So, I had to bake them and let them cool before we could start the "building" process. I had been gathering all the supplies for the last couple weeks, but had NO luck finding the circus peanuts for the heads. While the cupcakes were baking and Justin was cutting all the pretzel tails, I ran to a local grocery store and Dollar General hoping they would have the peanuts...it was my last resort! Thank you Dollar General for saving the day!!

*The idea for these cupcakes came from my friend Christie! They come from Hello, Cupcake! I didn't have the book (and had never heard of it), but there were several people out there that had tried them, and had pictures on their blogs to help us out. We made lots of our own adjustments though ;) You can Google "horse cupcakes" to find more pictures and links.

-While the cupcakes cooled, Justin carved little holes in the bottom of the peanuts, added a little melted chocolate into the holes, and then attached the chocolate wafers.

-After that, he dipped all the heads/peanuts into melted chocolate. *tip: Dipping them made the chocolate pretty thick, and the heads were way too heavy once in the cupcakes. Justin applied the chocolate with a spoon for the rest, so it was a thinner layer. Then he added chocolate chips for the ears, and we put the heads into the fridge for a few minutes to harden up.

-I carved out small rectangles from each of the cupcakes for the wafer to set inside. *tip: We discovered on the last couple cupcakes that it was better to just cut a slit (rather than a larger hole), and not remove any of the cake. This made a tighter fit when the wafer was inserted, and kept it from leaning forward too much.

-I frosted the cupcakes after the holes were cut, and then we inserted the heads.

-Justin used a zip-lock to pipe the horse manes with chocolate frosting (this is the same frosting on the cupcake...store-bought whipped chocolate)

-The tails were cut from regular twisted pretzels. I don't really have any tips for this. We made nine horse cupcakes, and it took Justin close to 30 minutes to get "acceptable" pieces for them. They had to be long enough, and you have to be really gentle when trying to get a long, curved piece. We dipped the pretzels into the melted chocolate to match the heads.

-Finally, Justin added white frosting eyes.

I think that's about it! They were a lot of work, but we had fun!! I could have never done them without my creative husband's help. He even missed a trip to Lowe's with his friends to stay home and finish them. He did get to go play ping-pong when they were done though! I think it's funny that his friend Josh told him "I've always thought of you as a man's man, Justin...hunting, fishing, playing sports...and you're decorating cupcakes." (it was something along those lines, anyway)

I was very excited with the way all of the decorations came out, and especially the cupcakes! Thanks to everyone who had a hand in helping me. It's so fun when the ideas you have in your head come to life! I know Barrett had a great time, and I hope he'll enjoy the pictures when he's older.

More pictures from the party later...

{More photos and details about the "Party Fun & Guests" can be found in THIS POST}