A cake decorator, I am not

I am sooooo not a cake decorator, I'm more of a 'Frost By Numbers' kinda gal, you know stick a star shaped nozzle on a piping bag and fill in the indents on the cake left from the pan, so when I read the directions on what to do I take them quite literal, I may question in my mind but then will go on to shrug my shoulders and think to myself "Well Mr Wilton said to do it this way".

Tuesday was Reagan's turn to take snack into school, I remembered mid morning on Monday, I had already done my grocery shop for the week and did not want to venture out again so I started blog surfing for some inspiration and came upon these little darlings, cute huh ? First off I couldn't figure out why only 16 cupcakes when a box mix states it will make 24 on the box and I've always gotten 24 out of it, and I needed 22 and I wasn't going to start on another box of mix just for 6 more cakes. Well I don't know what happens to batter when you divide it into 6 bowls and add food coloring but the amount decreases, it's true, crazy but true, yet if you divide it into 3 bowls you're good to go, if you don't believe me try it, it's weird. So my cupcakes only ended up with 3 colors, but the kids didn't know and what you don't know won't kill you (usually). Then I got creative, I hate the taste of cake mix from a box it's just kind of 'icky' so once the cakes cooled all the way I poked holes in the top and poured orange jello onto them and let it soak in, creative huh ? Then I put them in the fridge AND FORGOT ABOUT THEM until 1hr before they were due to school Tuesday morning, "S%^& " Open up the pantry no canned frosting, look for powdered sugar, didn't have enough. Panic set in and so I started blog surfing again and I found this blog where Supermom had made these same cakes ... though she'd only made 16 so they had the perfect 6 colors, WHATEVER !!! She gave all the directions and then 'frosted' CoolWhip on top, oh they looked so cute and guess what ? I had Cool Whip, So I took it from my freezer, waited for it to thaw a bit and then started 'frosting' , OMG, what a disaster, 'SuperMom' failed to add that she had to have added something to her CoolWhip to make it stay or she cheated and used Cool Whip from a can to get the perfect swirl because let me tell you, CoolWhip from a tub is not the consistency to frost with, even if you get a perfect swirl it will quickly drip and become a gloopy mess even if you put them in the refrigerator immediately... don't believe me ? Take a peek at this gloopy mess and yes the pic sucks I was rushing like a mad woman, freaking as to what to do as 22 kidlets were waiting on Ms Penny's snack and no all the cakes aren't there because after too many attempts I realised this was a big time FAIL

So I snapped a quick pic and hauled some serious butt to the 'Mart, where I sprinted down the aisles like a crazy woman and snatched up a much coveted can of Redi Whip and ran to the school where I entered the classroom and exclaimed " Who wants  messy cup cakes ?" and up shot a dozen hands eager to please Ms Penny. I LOVE those sweet 6 and 7 year olds, they're so forgiving, so around I went handing out 'Messy cupcakes' with the teacher on my tail prettying them up with the Redi whip and Reagan adding a shower of sprinkles and all was well in the world again. So take it from me, if you want to frost something w/ Cool Whip and keep it looking pretty BUY A CAN and squirt those swirls, they won't let you down.