Cupcake Craft Night at Etsy

Cupcake Gift Tags

We're delighted to be going back to Etsy Labs for another fun Cupcake Craft Night - Monday, May 11! We love paper as much as we love felt - so this year we plan to share our ideas for cupcake gift tags. Attendees can choose from four cupcake templates, lots of fun papers, felt and ribbon to create fun, personalized gift tags.

Have some great supplies of your own? Get out your bits of scrabooking paper, ribbons and other fun supplies you've been saving and join us. We'll be there in person in Brooklyn and online for this fun craft idea. The night is sponsored by Etsy and Cupcakes Take the Cake.

Etsy will also be pulling out their supplies for sewing, drawing, printing, button making, (and more!) for you to make things to your heart's content. Let your mind run wild and create cupcake creations of any kind!

When: Monday, May 11, 5-8pm

Where: Etsy Labs, 325 Gold Street, 2nd floor, Brooklyn, NY

Live Webcast: Join us for a live broadcast and demo from Craft Night online in the Virtual Labs starting at 5pm EDT.

Want to see what craft night is all about? See our pictures from last year's event!

Dreaming of Felt Food

Felt food is great way to encourage pretend play

Like many moms, I get my work done after the kids are asleep. Last night I was dreaming up a new style of icing for our felt cupcakes. The first post on this blog showed our original attempts at creating a realistic cupcake shape. If you've tried making your own patterns for felt food you know it takes a few tries to get a piece looking just right. Katherine and I initially settled on one icing style and have sold several in our shop on Etsy. These cupcakes feature soft ruffles in pink and white felt.

The fun thing about cupcakes today is variety, so we're going to keep dreaming up new designs for our felt cupcakes too! Our newest style features bold swirls of felt. I still need to stitch the layers together but so far I think it looks great. I couldn't resist putting a cherry on top. This was my first try at a felt cherry!! It was tedious to stitch the pieces together, but I think it's a nice finishing touch on this piece.

If you're shopping for play food this holiday season, please consider handmade felt treats like ours. See more of our felt goodies in our shop on Etsy!

Featured Seller: ChiliMango

One of the best things about Etsy is that new shops are added all the time, like this one ChiliMango. Emily recently started selling jewlery on Etsy, although she's been a member on Etsy from the beginning.

Based out of California she finds inspiration in the warm tropics and nature. I was impressed with the unique construction of this necklace - orange Japanese seed beeds and a yellow canary faceted lucite bead are strung on turquoise waxed cotton cord, twisted to make up the fun focal pendant.

Priced at $10 it's a great gift for a friend or for yourself!

In addition to her day job and Etsy business, Emily also created a social network called "Do You Etsy?" http://www.doyouetsy.com/ - a friendly place where Etsyians can promote their work, trade tips and support one another. It's a great resource for sellers, my favorite part of this network is the video section. Here are some of the great videos you'll find:

• Indie5Collective Channel for Etsy Artist - daily videos where you can learn about Etsy communities, meet other sellers and get tips for starting your business.


• How to videos for promoting your shop with myspace, facebook and twitter.
  
• Etsy Lab videos - packaging, photos and more
  

Lots of luck to Emily and her new business!!

Cupcake Night at Etsy, July 2008

Thanks to everyone who participated in Etsy's Cupcake Night. It was a great night of crafting and of course everyone loved cupcakes (thanks to Nichelle, Rachel and Allison for providing the yummy treats http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/)

We met so many wonderful people tonight and were so impressed by their enthusiasm and creativity. In the Etsy Labs we provided the instructions for our cupcake ornament, then gave attendees a variety of felt and yarn to choose from. While many followed our model, there were so many funky and unique designs. We took a bunch of photos which you can view in our photostream on Flickr. Towards the end of the night we popped on the webcast and gave the virtual attendees a step-by-step demo. Thanks to all who hung in there to see us online and for your kind words.


Thanks again - Jill and Katherine

To get your template and instructions

please convo us through Etsy (shop: tinycupcakes) or

send an email to sales@tinycupcakes.com

Template and instructions are our original design. We're happy to share with you but please use our guide for personal crafting only :)

Copyright (C) 2008 tiny cupcakes

Evolution of our Felt Cupcake!

We tossed around lots of business ideas, and then we discovered felt play food. We were immediately hooked on the idea felt food and set off to try our hand at creating our own versions. Our goal was to keep our product original so we decided to create our own patterns. Not as easy to do as we thought. My first cupcake was too large, Katherine's was smaller and more along the lines of what we had in mind. My second cupcake was cute, but looked more like those great mini chocolate mouse cakes. The third attempt was too small and a bit boring.

We really wanted a realistic size and shape - easy for kids to hold. Although kids love icing the best (and that's usually all they eat), we thought a detailed cupcake wrapper was important. So we experimented a bit, and then found a process that worked for us and makes our cupcake look authentic. Our end result is fun for kids - soft, squishy, and a replica of one of their favorite foods. Plus we think it looks gorgeous with lots of ruffled felt layers of icing on top.

We used acrylic felt and fleece for our prototypes - we now have a great supply of heirloom quailty, wool blend felt that's resists pilling and will better hold up to years of fun.

This is just the beginning for us - we look to real desserts as the inspiration for our felt play food. The ideas are limitless and we hope you check us out again to see what we're baking up next!