My son, he who inspired the Clone Trooper Cupcakes, Dragon Cake, and Perry the Platypus Cake, is obsessed with Angry Birds.  Well, he’s really obsessed with about a dozen games on the iPhone or Android when we’ll let him play them — and he got to play a lot while we were on vacation in Mexico.  And we had a 4 hour delay so I played my share of Angry Birds, too.  Anyway.  So here they are in cupcake form (here are a bunch of other Angry Birds creations, too).  Lots of fun to make, and quite tasty, too!

Wanna make them yourself?  They really aren’t that hard.  But I will warn you, they are definitely time consuming!

OH YEAH! Please go vote for these in the instructables cupcake contest!

More photos on Flickr

Basically, on top of your standard iced cupcakes, you place a bird.  The birds (and pigs) are made out of donut holes covered in marshmallow fondant, (the smaller birds are wrapped up mints or whoppers or similar).  It’s like playing with playdoh, and my 6 year old actually helped me make one of the set of 3 little birds (those are easier to make because with a hard center, you don’t have to be as careful while wrapping them).  Really, this is not that hard to do, it does take a little time and patience though, especially to kneed all those different colors into your fondant!

I wrote up an Instructable with everything step by step, and you can download it here: PDF: How to Make Angry Birds Cupcakes

Really, I have been so busy with web design stuff, that I haven’t taken the time to draw, and that’s just sad.  So I’ve had this robotic rooster in my head (he’s eventually going to be a big piece) and here’s my first attempt at a sketch of him.  Doesn’t it look like he’s just launched a football into the air?

I really like this sketch so much I don’t want to mess it up by adding more…  but alas I need to keep working on it!  Does that ever happen to anyone else?

(Want your own?  Go to the Tiny Prints facebook page and get a free card code for Liking them.)

I ordered 3 cards, for both granddads and dad (aka my hubby).  The quality was excellent, and I loved the ease of adding your own photos, not only to the outside of the card, but to the inside of the card as well.  For the 2 granddad cards, I did 2 photos on the front, then a big photo on the inside, opposite the text (see above).  Of course, since it’s all about the Grandson with them, all the pictures are basically of him, hehe.  One word of advice — have a selection of photos already picked out prior to starting the card creation process.  Then it’s easy to just drag and drop them in.

For the Dad card, I did 3 photos with captions on the inside, which I thought was a neat touch.  And much of the text–including the fonts– is customizable.

You can’t really see the envelopes, but they are nice as well, with an embossed To: From: and the addresses printed for you, if you like.

For me, the ultimate procrastinator, the best part is they will not only print the addresses on the envelops, they’ll and even stamp them for you (I never have stamps!) and actually even MAIL them for you if time is tight, for only the cost of the stamp.  Awesomeness.

So, get on over to their facebook and get your free card!.

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I’m very selective on products that I will promote on Dabbled, because I respect you guys–the readers–intelligence, and I want to be sure that anything I talk about will be both relevant, and something I’d recommend personally.  Tiny Prints did spring for the party, and provided these cards for free, but any comments and impressions are mine, and if I didn’t like them, I’d tell you.

• For our first night we stayed at a little eco hotel in downtown Cancún, El Rey del Caribe. It was lovely– a little oasis in downtown with a jungle like courtyard with a pool, hammocks, and a huge banyon tree. Great for a single night before we trekked off to the wilds. We also ate a great little italian pizza place called Tigre Y Toro, that was walking distance from the hotel.
• Our favorite part of the trip to the ruins was Ek Balam, where you can still climb the pyramids–it’s not as extensive as Chichen Itza, but definitely worth a visit. Although it was hot as the devil, we all had a great time doing that. We also stopped at a cenoté outside Valladolid, which was basically a natural pool inside a cave. Very cool, the kids loved swimming there.
• We spent the remainder of our time on Isla Mujeres, which we loved.  We stayed at the Ixchel condos, and had a hot tub on our rooftop deck that doubled as a kiddy pool for the boys to play in when we didn’t feel like going down to the real pool or beach.  Great location on North beach.
• We did a golf cart tour of the island, and found a fabulous beach restaurant with some of the best fish I’ve ever had.  More on the food later, we had incredible ceviche at this little beach bar too.
• All in all, a great, and mostly kid friendly vacation!

Plus, when we got home, the Tiny Prints cards I ordered for Father’s Day came in… Here’s the Scoop on that – and a free card for YOU too!

This tutorial was written by my brother.  He took my son fossil hunting a while back when we were visiting, and was kind enough to write up the how-to on making the screen to aid in finding treasure in a river or creek.  This would be a fabulous summer project, old enough kids and help make it, and younger ones will just enjoy the hunt!

From the project post:

Most kids like dinosaurs, sharks, and such, so when The Boy and Dot came to visit I decided to take them to creek to look for fossils from dinosaurs, sharks and such. We had a great day, and The Boy found all kinds of shark teeth from millions of years ago. Now while The Boy (3 years old at this point) seemed to be more interested in digging than actually finding things, many older kids really enjoy finding fossils and artifacts. After all, finding stuff is fun! It’s also great to get outside and get some exercise. Anyway, I decided to make a new screen recently, and figured I would document the steps in case anyone else was interested.

Read the whole thing, and get the how-to here: Make a floatable fossil hunting screen

Dot’s on vacation this week, so enjoy a few reruns of Dabbled you might have missed!

I’m on vacation this week, so here’s a few awesome reruns you might have missed!  xx00, Dot

Create a tasty clone army, perfect for your little starwars fan…  Go here to get the info: How to Make a Clonetrooper and Storm trooper pops!