Sweet Birthday Wishes

When you are in the Army, sometimes you are far away from family on special occasions.  That's when your Army family comes in handy.  One of my friends is having a birthday today.  A couple weeks ago she called me up to ask if I would do her a huge favor.  Her husband forbade her to make her own birthday treats, so she asked if I would be willing to bake some gluten-free cupcakes.  She would even pay me to do it.

You.
Will.
NOT!

My kids are grown and gone, so I haven't had the pleasure of treating someone to birthday cupcakes for years now.  Plus, I've been desperately needing to justify purchasing the CTMH Artiste cartridge with all its cupcake liners before I spend another boatload on the new CTMH Artbooking cartridge.  In the end I didn't use the cupcake liners, but I did pull out the Artiste cartridge to make these sweet treats:

I bought the frosting roses at Hobby Lobby.  They were expensive, but totally worth it (and I used my 40% off coupon so that helped).  The cupcake liners were on sale in the 4th of July section (HL).  The bottoms of them are blue and white stars, but you're not going to see them so I figured that was okay.  After I finished baking the cupcakes, I added a second liner so the greasy doesn't show through.

I am linking this up to Heart2Heart: Mix & Mingle challenge.  We are supposed to use either paper from three different packs or stamps from three different sets.  The stamped circle is from Connections, the "Sweet Birthday Wishes" is from an old wood-mounted Super Set, and the veins of the leaves are from Something Splendid.  All of them are CTMH and all are retired, but no one said I had to use current stamps for the challenge.

The swirl is cut from Artiste p. 46.  It's actually a button.  The leaf is from p. 54.  Had it not been for the challenge, I wouldn't have thought to add the veins.  LOVE how it turned out.  Shapes were cut from Ruby and Olive with the edges sponged in coordinating ink.

Until next time,
Becca

P.S.  And here she is picking up the tray.  She was surprised...and pleased.  Yay!!!