Faux Rock Construction

When you think of Spring, you think of flowers, baby animals, sunshine, a warm breeze and…rain? As the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers. But it seems like the rain doesn’t stop, even for June, July and August sometimes.

And if every day of your summer is packed with outdoor activities—swimming, hiking, biking, running, camping, picnics, etc. you may find yourself stuck indoors with no back up plans on the days when the sky just wants to rain on your parade for hours at a time.

When you’re stuck inside during spring (summer, fall and winter) torrents, you may find yourself bored out of your wits, but the truth is that there is as much to do on a day spent indoors as you do on a day spent outdoors!

Some of the best activities for indoor days are curling up with a good book—whether it’s a book, magazine, comic book or anything else you can find to catch yourself up on the words of the day; napping—there’s nothing better than a nap in the middle of the afternoon on a rainy day; playing board games or other favorites—it’s a great activity that can test your skills, depending on the game you choose, and you get to spend quality time with the people you love; or you could always play an old time favorite like heads up seven up or hide-n-go-seek; and,  baking—this all-time favorite can whisk you away into another world filled with fun, laughter, quality time and of course, quality treats.

The last of the bunch, baking, is an all-time favorite for many people because, unlike napping and curling up with a book, it can be a family activity and unlike board games and other games, baking isn’t a competitive game so you don’t have any hurt feelings in the end. You’re left with good feelings and good food to make for a great day spent indoors.

However, with baking comes a dilemma. For most people, thoughts of baking bring on thoughts of cakes and chocolate chip cookies. How can your children help bake when you have one cake? Who gets to frost the cake? And if you’re using sprinkles who gets to shake the sprinkle container? With chocolate chip cookies you have to decide who gets to spoon the dough onto the cookie sheet? You’re probably thinking, “How can baking be such a great activity if not everyone can participate equally?”

But there is a solution. Sugar cookies and cupcakes make a great substitution for treats, like full-size cakes and chocolate chip cookies, that are not as easy to decorate in groups.

Sugar cookies are fun in groups because everyone can use a different cookie cutter to cut out the shapes they want their cookies to be and there are plenty of shapes to choose from: stars, hearts, circles, trees, animals, etc. You name it and there’s probably a cookie cutter for it! And with sugar cookies you can decorate with different colors and flavors of frosting and tons of different candy items, so everyone gets their own individual cookies suited to their individual tastes, and everyone got to help make the cookie masterpieces on an equal level.

Aside from sugar cookies, you can also make cupcakes. There are thousands of cupcake decorating ideas on the internet, in cookbooks and, if you’re creative enough, in your own head as well. Along with thousands of decorating ideas you can also find tons of cupcake tips and cupcake recipes on the internet and in cookbooks as well.  But if you want to be a true creative spirit, you can just let the ideas go wild in your kitchen and come up with some tasty…and interesting cupcakes…

After all, the best cupcake tips are the ones that tell you to throw all of the rules out the window! You can make anything your heart desires—just make sure it’s safe to eat when you’re finished with it, or that you dispose of it properly if it isn’t. You wouldn’t want your rainy day friends, like ducks and geese, to get sick eating a cupcake, especially if it wasn’t safe for you!

From start to finish it can take anywhere from 1 to 6 hours to make cupcakes, get them decorated and finally enjoy them! It’s one of the best rainy day activities around because it takes up a lot of time that would be wasted staring out the window, wishing the “rain rain {would} go away.”

If you’re looking for your cupcakes to spruce up the rainy days and make them less gloomy, you can always invest in a good set of cupcake decorating ideas that embrace the ideas of spring. You can choose to use pastel or bright-colored icing, flavor it with springtime flavors—like strawberry—and you can cover your cupcakes in a wide variety of springtime decorations like pastel-colored sprinkles and other decorations you find on the baking aisle at the grocery store. Popular sugar or fondant toppers include a variety of spring friends like flower bunches, bees, frogs, fairies ladybugs and butterfly cupcake decorations.

If you don’t like the cupcake decorations available to you at the local grocery store you can always make your own with the aid of different colors of frosting and an icing kit—these kits provide you with all the necessary tools to make textures and shapes you would be able to make with a knife! Or, if you’re decorating on the fly, pull out a plastic sandwich baggy and cut off a bottom corner…it’ll do almost the same job and you won’t have to go out in the rain for a last minute trip to the kitchen or catering store.

Of course, it’s always great to have fun inside or out during the spring rainstorms, but if you’re prefer staying dry you can always make friends with an umbrella and a duck…made from cupcakes, of course.

Tags: cupcake decorating ideas | cupcake recipes | cupcake recipes | cupcake tips | cupcakes | cupcakes

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