Easy (and impressive) birthday cupcakes

This weekend we hosted our first true "kid party" for my son's fifth birthday. This probably goes without saying, but 9 boys (and one girl) under the age of 7 -- now that's a lot of energy. Here's a super easy idea for making your own cupcakes that look great and take virtually no time at all.

The way I made these little circle motifs was just to find some cool dinosaur clip art and put it into PowerPoint. Then I made a little light gray circle to go around each dinosaur so when I printed them I'd know where to cut. Finally, I added "Happy Birthday" so it fit inside my circles. I think they measured about two inches or so, but it doesn't have to be precise. Here are the rest of the instructions:

Step 1: Bake some cupcakes and frost them

Step 2: Crush some Oreos

Step 3: Smush the Oreos on top of the cupcakes

Step 4: Cut out your circle motifs

Step 5: Cut a bunch of straws into three equal parts; cut a slit into the end of each segment

Step 6: Slide the circles into the split straws and stick them into the cupcakes

When people ask my kiddo about his birthday party, the dinosaur cupcakes are the first thing mentioned, so I know they were a hit with him.

A Thrifty and Vintage Wedding Idea: Dessert Buffet

I'm coming up on my 8-year wedding anniversary. Phew, we made it this far! Here's hoping for 10! I really loved having a wedding. By not having a ton of money to blow on it, I got more creative and had more fun figuring out how to make it unique and suited perfectly to us.

So given that wedding season is upon us (and that I had the old photos out to find that photo of me in the sweater I had stashed away since high school), I thought I would post something that I thought turned out super cool. You could do this for your wedding and save all that money most people spend on cakes. Of course the "cake" part was one of my highest priorities with my wedding. I absolutely loved how this turned out.

I asked five or six of my friends if they'd be willing to bake something for the wedding. Now, normally I think the pot luck thing for a wedding isn't that great (who wants to cook when they're gettin' all fancied up to come party with you?). But I have friends who I know love to bake, and I knew this would be right up their alley. I didn't put any stipulations on them. All on their own they came up with what you see here.

They brought pies, truffles, cupcakes -- even an insane chocolate layer cake with green flames, topped with a vintage wedding cake topper I bought on Etsy! All I had to do was provide the decor for the table, some white Christmas lights, and it was done. It cost me next to nothing and my friends were excited to play a role. I think some of them were a little nervous that what they made wouldn't be "fancy" enough, but there wasn't a crumb left at the end of the night, so I'm pretty sure the guests didn't notice.

Did you do anything cool, vintage or thrifty for dessert at your wedding? I would love to hear your ideas! Because I liked getting married so much I might just do it again (yes, to the same guy) at 10 years. Who knows!