Sweet creations: how to make cupcake mosaics
Since childhood, iced cupcakes have been one of my favourite foods. Their perfect shape, the combination of sponge cake and colourful icing, makes for a delicious sweet treat. This had me thinking, how can I make cupcake mosaics into art? Afterall, it has all the elements to create something colourful and take pride of place on the wall.
Gathering inspiration to make cupcake mosaics
As simple as it sounds to make cupcake mosaics into multiple designs, I needed some inspiration. As a cupcake baker, I am not renowned for being the most adventurous cupcake decorator. Neither do I have a vast array of cooking utensils suitable for cake decorating at my disposal. My ‘go-to’ is generally cupcake recipe, bake, followed by using the same coloured icing for each cake and maybe including sprinkles on top. Not very exciting…
Then I remembered the card I had found with multiple cupcake designs. Of course! This was going to be easy. Time to think of colours, wiggly lines, frosting and adding a cherry or two on top!
Substrate and templates
As with all mosaic designs, there is the option to create an object design on its own, or as part of a bigger mosaic. I decided to go with making separate designs. Multiple separate designs.
I was also fortunate that I was able to utilise my brother’s woodworking skills.
I drew some fairly simple cupcake designs, cut these out, and traced them onto marine grade plywood with a black marker for my brother to cut with a woodwork jigsaw tool.
Selecting mosaic materials to make cupcake mosaics
I ended up with eight cupcakes in the same size, along with some smaller sizes that are still waiting to be decorated into mosaic cupcakes.
Naturally, I didn’t want to create the same mosaic design, so set about fossicking through my mosaic material collection for interesting items to use, resulting in using:
- Buttons for cherries, jewelry beads and golden garden stones for icing decoration
- Plates with decorative edges for the icing / frosting
- Textured crockery for both the patty pan and final frosting
- Stripes to highlight the curves in the patty pan
- Patterned plates to create a vintage feel for a couple of the cupcakes
Turning the finished mosaics into other products
I listed the finished cupcakes on Etsy and didn’t think of them any further as they were a finished product.
Although I did sometimes wonder how else could I use the mosaic cupcakes?
Then I started the Bonnie Christine course in learning how to use Adobe Illustrator to create surface pattern designs. Mmm, maybe this would be an opportunity to blend mosaics and surface pattern design to create my first pattern collection and turn the mosaic cupcakes in templates. Afternoon tea anyone?
