Tasting Party Event - Step 1: Preparation Nation

Where to begin, where to begin? Oh yeah, how about at the point of preparation. I can't really say where the "point" started, but shortly, my house was being filled with thrift store finds, clearance rack specials, and bags and bags of display items. I shit you not, my whole garage was filled...and that was without setting foot into a store to buy the items to actually bake the cupcakes.

To start, we estimated that we would need surface area for give or take 1,500 cupcakes. No that is not a typo - one thousand, five hundred cupcakes. Well, time to get to thrifting. After walking around with a black and white notebook for months, stalking out blogs for table displays of sweet treats, participating in our first showcase, we had a good idea of how the tables were going to be laid out.

Sooo, off to Ross, Marshall's, Ikea, TJ Maxx, AC Moore, and every thrift store in the northeast...or at least that's what it felt like! We shopped, we scoured clearance racks, we bargained, and at the end, we had a nice stockpile of items that would soon be turned into beautiful displays.

In order to do so, it was time to get crafty. I furiously wrote in my notepad as ideas hit me, Steph would text me the things I "needed" to do all the time and they went right into the notebook.

We made pinwheels for center pieces using chop sticks, scrapbook paper and fasteners. They came out beautiful. We made decorative displaysd out of styrofoam balls and cupcake liners...only to forget them at home. Exhausted yet? We were, but there was no time for stopping. I don't even know how many cans of spray paint we went through to make plain stands look beautiful. There were many a nights spent with a hot glue gun, scissors, ribbons, and so much more. It was a crafting frenzy all around - and that is on top of working a full time job and handling other cupcake orders :)

The week before the tasting party, we laid everything out and realized that we had a lot of beautiful stuff! We had beautiful boxes, white tray displays, handmade crafts, boxes of table cloths, napkins, banners, plates, sprinkles, OH MY!

Once that was all put together, it was time to get onto the baking!!!