Crafty Life Lessons

Posted on the 16 February 2012 by Wduprey33 @25by20five

I was told this weekend that I didn’t blog nearly enough-I’m sorry! I was worried about going through THE LIST too quickly.  So I’ve decided to do some non-LIST related posts whenever I do anything crafty and or cool.  Hence today’s post!

For those of you who don’t know, I am in charge of hosting all of the birthday celebrations at work-it’s pretty awesome.  I thought it would be a lot of fun to have the February birthday celebrations on the 14th this year and make it Valentine’s Day themed.  Then I got the genius idea to make heart shaped cupcakes!  I’d seen them on pinterest and foodgawker and they looked SO EASY TO MAKE!  False.

They looked so good and “hearty” (get it?) in the pan

My first attempt was a complete and utter failure.  I mixed the cupcakes, added a little red dye, and filled the cupcake liners.  I made the mistake of filling the liners as I would for normal cupcakes.  DON’T DO THIS.  I then put a little marble in behind the liner and already they looked like cute little hearts.

My first failure

They didn’t look like cute little hearts when they came out of the oven.  Yikes.  But, in baking, as in life, we learn from our mistakes and soldier forward.  We learn from our mistakes and do better next time.

This time I filled the cupcake liners less.  I used two spoonfuls the first time, so I figured I would use one spoonful this time.  The liners looked so empty with one little spoonful of batter in them that I caved and added another half of a spoonful.  DON’T DO THIS!  While the end result was certainly better than the first, they were still a far cry away from the perfectly heart shaped cupcakes floating around pinterest.

CLose, but still no cigar

Try, try again.  And the third time is always the charm…right? …not right…completely wrong.  I only filled them with one spoonful of batter this time. Still not heart shaped.  Closer, yes, but still not quite it.

GAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So do we try a fourth time?  No.  We give up.

Ohh, I’m sorry.  Did you think this was going to be some sort of underdog triumph story?  Poor little baker can’t get her cupcakes to look like hearts, but she never ever gives up? Ya. No.  This isn’t that story…

After three attempted batches (failed batches) I have come to the conclusion that perhaps I need larger marbles to make a more distinct indent in the liners.  Only problem is, these marbles came from my mom’s house and I have no desire to drive over there at this hour of the night begging for more marbles.  I would rather sleep. So, we give up.  Better yet, we give up and go to bed because we realize that without my solid 9 hours of sleep I might actually hurt someone in the morning.  We realize that these cupcakes are not worth losing my marbles over (see what I did there?).  So we sleep.  We don’t stress the small stuff we can’t control, and instead, sleep.  I (we) love sleep.  Hopefully my co-workers tomorrow will realize that even if the cupcakes don’t look like love, they taste it <3

So, what’s today’s life lesson?  Is it to never, ever, ever give up?  Sorry Mr.Churchill, in some circumstances that is an excellent idea.  However this time we learned not to sweat the small stuff. to breathe, stretch, shake, let it go.  On to the next.  (My life lessons are usually influenced by pop songs).  At least they taste good!

The ADORABLE version Pinterest teased me with)The closest I got….Thanks for reading! xo Whitney