Carpe Diem and Cupcakes

I once read that people feel more satisfied when they spend money on experiences instead of on material objects.  As someone who harbors a passion for all things sartorial, I tend to feel pretty darn satisfied with some of my material objects.  However, this past year, I've begun to develop a love of new experiences and adventure.  This carpe diem attitude can lead me anywhere from checking out a new farmers market to ziplining in the forests of the Dominican Republic.  This past weekend, my new outlook lead me to a cupcake decorating class conducted by the awesome people at Charm City Cupcakes. 

A few weeks ago, I saw a Groupon for Cupcake Decorating 101.  Within the past year, I've started baking and decorating cupcakes and cookies as a hobby, so I thought the workshop would not only be fun, but also be a great learning experience.   I saw on facebook that one of my friends had already bought a groupon for the class, so shot her a text and purchased the Groupon, too.  Saturday, we piled into the car, headed to the city, and took our seats at a table in a room on the third floor of the Renaissance Hotel.  We were each equipped with a kit (Groupon alleges that it was worth $100, but I know I paid about $12 for mine that I have sitting in my cupboard), two coffee cups of buttercream, a coupler (that round thing that allows you to switch your decorating tips from icing bag to icing bag), and toothpicks for mixing our icing:



After unpacking our kits, we were taught how to cut our icing bags in order to fit the decorating tips.  Then, we got to choose our colors for our icing and load up our icing bags.  I thought I'd try to make my icing a foresty moss green and an airy blush pink, because those are my wedding colors.  We didn't have much time to really perfect our colors, so instead, I ended up with a preppy color combination reminiscent of Easter eggs and one of my Lily Pulitzer golf skirts:

I didn't let my dye debacle ruin my afternoon (carpe diem, right?), and I trudged onward.  Next, we were told that we were going to begin table decorations.  I was unsure of how we were going to decorate the table, until I learned that we were to practice our icing technique (90 degree angle! Medium pressure!) on. our. placemats.  As anal retentive industrious teachers, my friend and I weren't too excited about this part for two reasons: 1.  We didn't like the idea of wasting our precious icing on a placemat, and 2. You mean we're supposed to get icing on the table?  On purpose?  But, like model students, we did what we were told:

At this point, we were a good hour into the workshop, and we still hadn't seen cupcakes.  Finally, we were told to "clear the decks" (which means put everything to the side and get new placemats - don't worry, I ate the icing off of mine before I crumpled it) in preparation for the cupcakes.  We each received three chocolate and three vanilla cupcakes.  They smelled heavenly.

As the baked goods were being doled out, we were dismissed table by table to the cupcake bar.  Yes, I said cupcake bar.  In my mind, there aren't two words in the English language that you could unite to make a better combination.  Here's my view of the cupcake bar (I really do love saying and typing those two words together.  They just flow out of the mouth and off the fingertips so easily.  Cupcake bar.  This truly needs to be a permanent fixture in my vocabulary.):

It looks way less exciting in this picture than it was in person.  Canisters upon canisters of sprinkles.  Need I say more?

At the cupcake bar, we got to choose three kinds of sprinkles and three decorating rings.  I thought of the sprinkles and rings as accessories, and I had no trouble picking out three of each:

At other tables, there was a Charm City employee on-hand to teach a few decorating techniques.  Our Charm City employee happened to be the woman running the entire workshop, so we were kind of on our own. 

When we got back from the cupcake bar, the other women at our table sat down and got right to work decorating their cupcakes.  Again, my teacher friend and I couldn't quite do it.  No one was there giving us directions!  What were we supposed to do?  And how were we supposed to do it?  We both literally picked up our icing bags three times to begin decorating before putting them down again.  It just didn't feel right to start without someone giving us the go-ahead.  Finally, another employee came over, showed us how to fill a cupcake with icing (way easier than you'd think, btw), and gave us the official green light we so badly desired to get started.  After decorating for about 10 minutes, these were my finished creations:

I got lots of compliments on them, but as a typical perfectionist Virgo, I wasn't quite satisfied with how they turned out.  I did, however, learn a couple of techniques to try for my back-to-school cupcakes that I plan on making next week. 

Overall, the experience was fun, but the general consensus of the group was that we were all glad we had used a Groupon and hadn't paid full price for the workshop.  It was crowded, and we didn't really learn how to decorate; we just learned how to prepare to decorate.  The practice never hurts, though!

Tomorrow or Wednesday, I plan to be back to fashion blogging with a review of my J.Crew double-serge wool no. 2 pencil skirt that finally arrived in the mail.  The jazzy purple color is gorgeous, you guys.  Can't wait to show you!

For now, have a wonderful day!