170 cupcakes

...is what I've cooked up these past couple of days.

My mom, God bless her, came over and helped me

frost them all this morning. It took three hours! 

What if I had done it by myself?! I really enjoyed 

talking with her as we worked. The time flew by.

The reason for the amount of cupcakes, besides

the fact that we don't know how many people will

come to Elliott's birthday party (he's six already --

can you believe it?!) is that the theme is Mario, and

I was inspired by this pixel mosaic idea. Well,this

particular Mario is made up of 168 pixels (1 cupcake

= 1 pixel). Which is better than the 1-up mushroom 

that requires 238. Anyway, besides loving pixel art,

I liked this idea because it creates an overall image

without complicating the design of each individual

cupcake. I'll post a photo once we get him set up.

Oh... also, my mom suggested freezing the cupcakes

before frosting, and it definitely made things go 

faster. They did much less crumbling into the frosting.