Make Life Lovely: Easy Ocean Animal Cupcakes + My Birthday Giveaway!

Happy Monday everyone! Today is my birthday (woo hoo!), and I thought it would be fun to do a little birthday giveaway!

I'll be giving away a $25 gift card and 3 sets of 25 striped straws to one lucky winner! More details and the easy entry form are at the bottom of the post...

I recently needed a quick treat to share with about 20 of my kids' friends, and so I came up with these easy ocean animal cupcakes as a last minute snack for the kiddos.

If you follow me on Instagram (which I'd love for you to do if you're not already!), you might have seen the above picture of my first batch of these fun fish cupcakes I made for a beach trip with friends on the last day of school.

I made them again yesterday, but this time I used the Sea Life version of Swedish Fish, which included starfish, dolphins, puffer fish, red Swedish fish, and whales. I also made some easy little flags to add more color and height to the cupcakes.

I love how they were sooooo easy and fast to make, and all the kids loved them! I thought I'd share them with you in case you need a quick fun summer treat to share, or even keep all to yourself ;)

Ocean Animal Cupcakes:

Box cake and frosting (or you could make it from scratch, too)
Light blue gel food coloring
Sea Life gummy candies (or Swedish fish)
Toothpicks
Masking sticker set (or washi tape)
Cupcake liners (I used both these blue and yellow baking cups)

1. Make cake mix and pour the batter into the cupcake liners or baking cups inside of a muffin tin. I adore the muffin and cupcake baking cups from Wholeport. They come in all different colors and two different sizes, and are only $2.29 and $2.64 for 50 of them! And they are greaseproof, so when you bake directly inside them, there won't be any yucky oil marks seeping through them. Bake according to the directions.

2. Let cool, and frost with vanilla or cream cheese frosting tinted with light blue gel coloring. I LOVE gel coloring! The colors are so much more vibrant, and a tiny bit goes a long way.

3. Remove a strip of the masking sticker (or washi tape), and push together the two ends. Stick the toothpick up into the tape on the folded side, and push the tape together to form a cute little flag.

Stick the flag into gummy ocean animal, and stand back and adore your lovely little cupcake. Wasn't that easy?

Repeat for the rest of the cupcakes, and snitch a few of those yummy animals...

Now onto my birthday giveaway!!!

I'm excited to be giving away a $25 gift card to your choice of one of a few of my favorite places!! The winner can choose one $25 gift card from Nordstrom, The Cheesecake Factory, Michaels, M.A.C. Cosmetics, or Amazon.

AND, the winner will also receive 3 sets of 25 striped straws in red, yellow, and blue, for a total of 75 striped straws! I LOVE using these straws at all of my parties and when entertaining- they look especially adorable in mason jars!

Be sure to enter to win below!

Leave a comment for an easy entry, and follow Make Life Lovely for additional entries (optional). The contest will end on Monday, July 8th at 12 am. The winner will be randomly chosen and announced here on the blog on Tuesday, July 9th, and will have 48 hours to email me to claim their prize.

Be sure to check back on Tuesday so see if you are the winner! If the prize is not claimed, a new winner will be chosen. This contest is only open to U.S. residents and is void where prohibited. Must be 18 or older to enter. Good luck!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway xo, Laura

Discolsure: I was given craft supplies in exchange for writing about them. As always, all opinions are 100% mine.