A princess crown

One of the next orders that I received was for a little girl at my son's daycare.  This would be one of the first orders I got for a little girl.  I was told that this little girl liked princesses.  I decided to try my hand at making princess crown cupcakes.  I used the melted chocolate technique that I had used in the past.  Basically I melted the chocolate, put it in a squeeze bottle, printed out an image that I wanted to use, put wax paper over the image and traced it.  This time, I also took pink colored sugar and covered the crowns with it.  Here is the picture of one of the cupcakes:

I learned a few things after making these cupcakes.  First of all, now that I was making all of these cupcakes, I need to learn how to take better pictures!  LOL!  I can't figure out how to change the settings properly to take pictures at night in the lights of my house.  So silly, I know.  But the pictures can really make the cupcakes look even better than they do in person! I also learned that I used too much pink on these and the wrong frosting bag tip on the frosting!  Oh the things we learn when we look back on what we have done.  Just  another learning opportunity!

The story of Mike Wazowski

Monsters Incorporated. 

One of my friends wanted to order Mike Wazowski cupcakes.  For those of you who don't know, Mike Wazowski is the one eyed monster from the movie Monsters Incorporated.  Here is a picture of him:

I had my first experience making Mike Wazowski cupcakes when my son turned 2.  He was OBSESSED with the movie Monsters Inc.  He was going to have his birthday fall on a day that he was in daycare so I planned on making cupcakes to bring to school for his class.  The night before his birthday, my husband and I stayed up making the cupcakes.  We rolled out fondant for the white part of the eye and the teeth.  I used different colored frostings for the face and the eyeball.  They looked beautiful!  And then I left them on the counter in my kitchen all wrapped up overnight.  In the morning I heard my husband call from downstairs.  It was something to the effect of "don't freak out, but the cupcakes are ruined!" 

Well, it turns out that the temperature in my kitchen got too warm and the eyeballs and mouths on the cupcakes slid right off!  They were ruined!  This was way before I was making my cupcakes from scratch so I used frosting from a can.  It must have gotten very slippery and very melted!  The good news was that I was able to take a picture of the cupcakes the night before so I had evidence of them!  Fast forward to May of 2011 and my friend ordered the Mike Wazowski cupcakes.  I had a chance to redeem myself!  LOL!  This time, they went in the fridge overnight and they were perfect!

Blues Clues

One of the daycare parents requested Blues Clues cupcakes.  This was way back in the beginning stages of Cupcakes for Sophia's Cure.  I hadn't really gotten into any kind of fancy cupcake topper decorations.  So I thought and thought to try and figure out what I could put on top.  And since I had been an expert on watching Blues Clues back when my son was younger, I realized that the paw print was a HUGE part of every Blues Clues episode.  So, here you go:

This was one of my most basic cupcakes.  I thought they were cute, but if I have to critique it, I would have done the frosting a little differently.  I would have made the brown frosting (because the mom requested chocolate frosting) a lot smoother.  I would have used something else to make the blue paw print appear more finished.  But, we live and learn and this was just one more learning experience!

Elmo

And so the orders started slowly coming in.  I have to first say that looking back, it's amazing that these parents gave me a chance, ordered cupcakes from a stranger that they didn't know.  From someone who didn't have an established baking background!  To make cupcakes for their children!  And to pay me for the cupcakes as well!  The more I write, the more crazy I feel like it is!  It really highlights the power of an amazing cause!  How can you not look into the eyes of Sophia and hear about her story and not want to get involved! 

One of the parents wanted me to attempt Elmo themed cupcakes.  Here are the results of that attempt!

Vanilla cupcakes, vanilla buttercream frosting.  The kids loved them!

Getting the ball rolling...

Looking back, I am still so amazed at how this venture of mine started to slowly gain momentum.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, without the support of my children's daycare I'm not sure this would have gotten to the point it did. 

In addition to the parents at the daycare supporting my cupcakes, the teachers at the school started to support me as well!  It started with some cupcakes for a baby shower they were having for 2 of the teachers at the school.  When I look back at these cupcakes, I tend to shudder a little bit.  I was just starting and really had no idea what I was doing!  I had no idea that you have to use powdered or oil based food coloring when working with melted chocolate.  I had no idea how to  really make decorations for the top of cupcakes.  I was pretty much making it up as I went along! 

Here are the baby shower cupcakes that I made.  Both of the teachers were going to have baby girls so I made sure to include some pink!  Please be kind to these cupcakes!  LOL!

You know those cupcakes you see with the thick, beautiful, mountain of creamy frosting that is swirled so perfectly that it looks like a pile of soft ice cream on top!  WELL, that is what I attempted in the picture above!  LOL!  Obviously I was using the wrong tip on my frosting bag.  I can't believe people  told me that these cupcakes looked good, but t;hey did! 

And here is the attempt I made at making these cupcakes look like baby shower cupcakes!  I used melted chocolate to make what I thought were going to be baby rattles!  I do believe my 3 year old son at the time told me they looked like lollipops!  Amazing that I frequently use my children, who are now 4 and 2, as my litmus test on whether or not I did a good job on the decorations.  If my 4 year old son knows what the decoration is, then I  must have done a decent job!  Well, these baby rattles were not my best, but it was at the beginning of my cupcake venture so I will cut myself some slack!  And again, the frosting was delicious, but the way I piled it on..... not so pretty! 

A partnership is born

It was not long after I started my cupcake venture that I received a message from a woman on Long Island.  Her name is Renee and she approached me through a Facebook message, asking me if I wanted someone to help me with cupcake orders on Long Island.  She told me that she loves to bake and would like to be involved in what I had started. 

The challenge with what I had started was that the first people I began sharing my cupcake information with were the ladies on Long Island Families.  Hmmmmm.... "Long Island" Families.  I lived in New Jersey.  As a working mom, I wasn't going to do orders for people on LI unless I had a reason to go there.  I had to keep it local to where I am located.  So right off the bat, I hit a hurdle.  The women on LIF were already familiar with Sophia and her story.  It would have been so easy to tap into that resource to start getting orders for cupcakes there.  But I was in NJ. 

So I took Renee up on her offer.  She serves as the Long Island extension of Cupcakes for Sophia's Cure.  I think it's wonderful that she wanted to join me in my cause.  And from there, we were off and running!

The first official order... the theme of Spiderman

I believe it was the day after I put the flyers in all the children's cubbies at the daycare when I received my first cupcake order!  I was amazed that a parent would contact me so quickly.  And the cupcakes were needed a few days from when the order was placed.  It was a father who contacted me to tell me that it was his son's birthday and he would love to have Spiderman cupcakes for his son to have a party at daycare.

For these cupcakes, I melted chocolate to make the spiders.  Keep in mind that this was the very beginning of  teaching myself how to make decorations.  I basically take wax paper or parchment paper.  I print out from my computer an image that I want to create.  I put the image under the wax paper and use the melted chocolate in a squirt bottle to trace the shape that I want.  When you are done tracing, put the tray in the fridge for a few minutes and they come out hard and ready to go on top of a cupcake!  With these spiders, I broke some of the legs because they were a bit fragile, but otherwise, they came out pretty good for my very first official order!

Setting a goal

As I began my adventures in cupcaking, I wanted to have a goal in terms of how much money I wanted to raise for Sophia's Cure Foundation.  I honestly did not think that I would be able to hit a goal of $5,000.  I wanted it to be attainable so that I could find success.  So, I finally landed on my initial goal of $500.  I thought that this would be something that I could hit.  When I set my pricing for the cupcakes, I started by charging $20 per 24 cupcakes.  I figured that I was not a professional at that point, I needed to start to get the word out and build my reputation.  Also, since I was starting to spread the word through daycare, I wanted the price to be attractive enough that parents would want to pay it for cupcakes at a party they would most likely not be present for.

Keep in mind, this was something I was going to be doing during my "spare time"!  LOL!  Having a full time job plus 2 small children does not equal a lot of spare time!  I was making all of the cupcakes at night, after the kids went to sleep.

As all of this was happening, I was in contact with Sophia's mom.  I told her about what I was doing.  I wanted to know if it was OK for me to include information about Sophia in my flyers as well as a picture of her.  Being the wonderful woman she is, Sophia's mom gave me the go ahead to do whatever I needed to spread the word.  After all, it is important to spread the word and raise awareness of SMA.

It is also important to note that I have the most wonderful, supportive husband on the face of the planet.  He has helped me get to where I am today.  First he got me the cupcake workshop.  Then he got me a kitchenaid mixer.  After that, I believe for Mother's Day, he got me cupcake boxes so that I could package my cupcakes and transport them.  When he found out that I had an order for 100 cupcakes, he bought a new refrigerator to put in our basement so that I could keep the cupcakes safe until the next day!  So you can see that my support on the home front is certainly not lacking!  It's an amazing feeling to know that my husband is happy just knowing how much doing the cupcakes means to me.

Now to start talking about the orders I completed in the beginning...  

Putting an idea into reality

At this point, I had an idea.  I wanted to sell cupcakes to raise money for Sophia's Cure Foundation.

I had the name to give to my idea... Cupcakes for Sophia's Cure

I had recipes I could use to make cupcakes and frosting from scratch.

Now I needed to figure out how to let people know I was doing this and I needed a logo.

First I approached an incredible woman named Andrea who was a parent I virtually knew from Long Island Families.  She had started a side business called Andreap Designs and I contacted her to see if she would be willing to help me out and design a logo for my cupcake venture. Since my plan was to donate all of my proceeds to Sophia's Cure Foundation, I didn't really have any funds to do much.  I can't say enough wonderful things about Andrea.  She was willing to help me out and created the AMAZING logo that you see on the top of the blog.  On a side note, if you ever need any invitations, cards, labels, etc made, PLEASE reach out to Andrea.  She is a pleasure to work with!

Once I had the logo, I decided to approach my director at my children's daycare.  At this point I now had a daughter as well, so we were well established parents at the school.  I asked the director if I could put a flyer in the cubbies of all the parents to let them know of my new idea and what I was raising money for.  I am fortunate to say that the director agreed and that is where my journey officially began!  Here is what I wrote in the letter to the parents.

Hello Rainbow Parents!

My name is Amanda Whiteside and my children are a part of the Rainbow family.

I have recently been blessed to learn about a beautiful little girl named Sophia who turned 2 in February.  This was a huge milestone because Sophia has SMA Type 1(Spinal Muscular Atrophy), a genetic disease in which doctors do not expect a child to make it to see their second birthday.  SMA is the #1 genetic killer of children under the age of 2 which has no cure or treatment.  It robs a child of the ability to roll over, sit, stand, walk, talk, eat, and even breathe.  Things I take for granted every day that my children are able to do. 

Sophia’s parents created Sophia’s Cure Foundation, a non-profit foundation raising money towards SMA research that will hopefully find a treatment or cure for this heart breaking disease. 

Please visit www.sophiascure.org to learn more about SMA and Sophia. 

I am trying to help this family in any way I can.  With the blessing of Rainbow Academy, I am sending this offer out to all the Rainbow parents.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I love to make cupcakes!  Your children love to eat cupcakes!                                                                        And once a year your children have a birthday!

If you are interested in having cupcakes at school to celebrate your child’s birthday, I ask you to consider allowing me to make them for you.  You wouldn’t have to make a trip to the store to buy them, I will bring them right to your child’s class and the money raised will go towards SMA research. 

The cupcakes and frosting I make are from scratch (not from a box), and you can let me know what flavor cake you want as well as the frosting.   I will provide 24 cupcakes (more if you need them) for $30. 

100% of the profits will be donated to Sophia’s Cure Foundation.

If at all interested, please contact me.  Even if your child’s birthday isn’t until later in the year, I will mark it down on my calendar and speak to you about details as it gets closer.  


And then I started getting orders from parents.

The cupcake/cure connection

My husband took notice to the fact that I was really enjoying making cupcakes.  For one of the gifts he got me one year, he gave me a 3 hour cupcake workshop certificate!  This was essentially a ticket for me to go into New York City, go to one of the culinary schools they have there, and learn all about making and decorating cupcakes!  I still have the folder that they gave me that day!  I learned all about how to make my own cake flour if I didn't have any in the house.  I learned the difference between baking powder and baking soda.  I learned that it is very important to use butter that is at the right temperature when baking!  Most importantly, I got my first taste of baking cupcakes from scratch!  I also learned that I can be quite the idiot sometimes when I'm not paying attention!  I was the first person to make a mistake of such magnitude that I had to throw out my batter!  I think the girl I was paired up with was REALLY wishing she didn't get stuck with me, but whatever!

I came home from that experience with 2 boxes of cupcakes that I decorated, a folder filled with cupcake and frosting recipes, and an enthusiasm to start baking from scratch!  Here are some of the cupcakes I made:

It was not long after I attended the cupcake workshop that I found out Sophia's parents had started something called The 200 for SMA.  They wanted to raise $1,000,000 in 2011 for SMA research.  They realized that if 200 families or people committed to raising $5,000 each, they would hit that goal.  I WANTED to make a difference, but I realized that I was not good at fundraising.  What could I do to raise money?  I really had no marketable skills.  I didn't think there was much I could do.

And then someone planted the seed in my mind that I could sell cupcakes.  I don't remember how it all started.  I do remember that I was just playing around with the idea when a girl named Kristen suggested I call it "Cupcakes for Sophia's Cure".  Once she suggested that name to me, I had to find a way to get this idea started!

A young love develops...

Fast forward to 2010.  I started to realize that I enjoyed making cupcakes.  No, not the delicious homemade ones that are all beautiful.  I'm talking about getting a box of cake mix from the store, making cupcakes with that, opening a can of frosting and topping them off!  I soon found myself volunteering to make cupcakes for every single party that my son was having at his daycare!  Looking back on these cupcakes today, I shudder, but at the time I thought I was a rock star!  Valentine cupcakes, Easter cupcakes, Halloween cupcakes, birthday cupcakes!  

These are some Valentine themed cupcakes that I made for my son's daycare party.  I'm pretty sure someone told me that the M&Ms I put on top looked like nipples!

 And here are some mini cupcakes that I made for teacher appreciation day at the daycare.  I tinted all of the frosting to match the different classroom themes.... pink elephants, green frogs, orange giraffes, khaki kangaroos, purple cats, blue horses, yellow ducks, goldfish!

Here are the Halloween Monster cupcakes I made.  This was another "man I think I'm so cool right now" moments!  

Easter bunny cupcakes... I thought I was so cool!  LOL!

 It pains me to look at these... my husband was having a poker game at our house.  I made these for the "boys"!

 Rainbow cupcakes for St. Patricks Day...

 At the time, I was VERY impressed with myself because of these cupcakes.  They were for my son's 2nd birthday party.  I made them for his party at daycare.  My husband helped me that night.  He cut out all of the teeth for me, helped me make the eyes and smiles.  Then I made the mistake of thinking they could sit out overnight. The next morning I was upstairs and I hear my husband call me from downstairs.  I believe his words were "don't freak out, but the cupcakes are ruined!"  Turns out it was too warm in my kitchen overnight and all of the eyeballs and mouths slid off the cupcakes into a pile of goopy mess!  Lesson learned!  I ended up stopping at the supermarket and buying cupcakes for the party... but I will always have the picture!

 Alligator cupcakes.  I think these were for our son's 3rd birthday.  His party at school.  I remember trying to get the swampy green color just right.  In the end it was a very unappetizing shade!  LOL!

What you will find as I begin to explain further in more blog entries is that I start to get better.  Call me a self-trained cupcake baker!  This was just the beginning!

The background...

This all started when I learned about the story of Sophia.

I have been a member of a website called Long Island Families for several years now. I would say I have been a member there since 2006, after I got married.  The main reason I was using the site was to utilize the discussion boards.  I was pregnant with my son and there was a pregnancy board where women would discuss things such as what their early pregnancy symptoms were or when was the first time you felt your baby move.  It was a great place to go to ask questions from women who were going through the exact same thing as you at the exact same time.  It was also nice to have the 'been there, done that' moms chiming in with their opinions and experiences.  From the pregnancy board, I graduated to the parenting board once our son was born.  Now I could ask things like "when did your baby finally start sleeping through the night" or "how many times does your infant poop"!  As a new mom who had no idea what I was doing, LIF was a wonderful resource to me.

I don't remember exactly when I first learned about Sophia.  I know that she will be 3 in February, so it must have been sometime in 2008.  I remember how open her mom was in telling us about her diagnosis.  Sophia, this beautiful little baby girl, was diagnosed with SMA.  Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  Just like most of the the other moms on our little online community, I had never heard of SMA.  Of course from there I went straight to Google to learn more.  What I learned is that SMA is a genetic disorder.  It is also the leading genetic killer of children under the age of 2.  It is something that robs these children of the ability to roll over, to sit up, to walk, run, and even breathe.  My understanding is that they are missing a gene that helps in the development of muscles.  With nothing to develop new muscles, the ones they are born with begin to atrophy and they lose the ability to move.  I immediately looked at my own son and vowed to never take a single breath of his for granted.

Time went on and Sophia's mom continued to inform and educate us about how Sophia was doing and that they had started a foundation to raise money for SMA research.  Their foundation is called Sophia's Cure Foundation and let me tell you, these wonderful parents are working HARD to raise awareness and raise money for a cure!