Cupcake Toppers in ... 1 - 2 - 3

I have to confess that I am generally not a fan of cupcake toppers.  It is the snobby cake decorator in me that wants everything on a cake (or cupcake) to be edible.  Last year, when the craze for cupcake toppers hit, I was less than thrilled.  I like to expend creative energy on edible decorations.

However, I finally gave in.  Last August, my niece and nephew had a superhero birthday party.  They wanted cupcakes with "the little toothpick things" as the 3/4 year old described them.  I was walking down the kids craft aisle of the craft store, when I saw these foam stickers, and...BAM I knew what I was going to do.  I grabbed a bag of the stars, a paint pen, and headed to the checkout.

When I got home, I couldn't wait to get started.  I used the white paint pen, and a fine black sharpie to write on the foam stars.  I wrote superhero words like "bam," "pow," and "zap."  I also added a few "happy birthday's" and many letter "m's" for their names.  The stars already came with that fantastic border, so no other decoration necessary.  When I was done, I had a pile of stickers that looked like this:

To construct the topper all I had to do was pull the back off the foam stickers, and place a toothpick between two stickers (sticky sides together).

Stick in a cupcake, and you are ready to go!  How easy was that?  I used the "Grasshopper" (mint chocolate) cupcakes from this post, and chocolate cupcakes with strawberry icing.