Manda Monday--Cupcake contest

Way back in early March, my local library announced that it would be having a cupcake decorating contest.

A cupcake decorating contest? Awesome! 

Naturally, I signed up.  I did this in spite of the following:
1. I had cookies and cake to bake/decorate for a baby shower that same weekend.
2. The next weekend is my biggest fundraising event of the year, and I would be incredibly busy and stressed.
3. I had absolutely no idea how I wanted to decorate my cupcake.

I signed up anyway, even though I knew deep, deep down that it was bad idea to be adding things to my schedule.  But when someone throws the words "cupcake" and "competition" together, I have a hard time saying no.

Due to my crazy schedule, I didn't even think about the contest until Thursday night when I made the cupcakes, and I didn't think about how I would decorate them until Friday afternoon.  I checked in with Martha for inspiration and found this:

Then I surfed over to Wilton and found this:

And there was my idea! I would do something resembling forget-me-nots on a cupcake and top it with a chocolate-covered pretzel butterfly.  Woohoo!

Of course, this was easier said than done.  In a perfect Martha-wannabe world, I would have had hours to work on my contest entry with no interruptions and real butterflies flitting about.  In reality, I started the cupcakes at 12:15pm for a contest that began at 1pm.  And, because this is sometimes the way I do things, I didn't even have the correct decorating tip to do a forget-me-not flower. 

Move over, Charlie Sheen, because I am more winning than you.

Here are the cupcakes I came up with for the contest:

Obviously, not my best work, but that's what happens without enough time to properly execute a crappy plan.  I took the pink rose cupcake to the contest. Needless to say, I got schooled. 

I'll show you my competition tomorrow. Stay tuned!