Flower Cupcake

At May's Home Enrichment meeting we held our first (hopefully annual) Cupcake Wars! I'm on the planning committee and I'm always up for an excuse to make-and decorate... and eat-cupcakes.
We divided the ladies into three teams of four or five. On the main table we had a variety of candies, food coloring, spatulas, and sprinkles. On each team's individual table they had a jar of frosting and a dozen cupcakes.

The rules were:
1) Each team could pick two kinds of candies and one kind of sprinkles. One person would come up at a time and pick one candy at a time.
2) If they wanted to use food coloring, they would need to put it back so other teams could use it.
3) The teams don't have to use all 12 cupcakes, but they cannot use any more than the 12.
4) Have fun!

I wish I had pictures of  what the other teams had made because they were cute and so creative.

One team made a river. They had a ribbon of blue frosting along their cupcakes, pearl sprinkles as river pebbles, and chocolate rocks (found at Winco) along the riverbank. (It might have been mistaken for a dragon, but it was pretty cool.) They also had a gumdrop tree off to the side.

The other team made a flower with a long stem. They used chocolate cupcakes and pastel nonpareils mints, so they tasted amazing!

My team won with the flower pictured above. We used chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (which are super yummy!) and banana Runts. The midrib of the leaves were created with gel decorator frosting. One of the girls on my team used a wire from one of the bags of candy to pull it out slightly to create the veins.
I cut the top off one of our cupcakes and cut the shape of the butterfly. I used the strawberry runts on the fore wings and sunflower seeds to line the body and both sets of wings.

We were pretty happy with how they turned out and a couple of us were thinking of using this idea for our girls' birthday parties. I have two girls with birthdays in the fall, so I think it will come in handy. We're not professional cake decorators, but for our kids, it is doable.

Upcoming posts:
Lilo & Stitch cake - homemade of course & a giveaway! Come back and see me!