Teapot Cake & Cupcakes

Last weekend I made this little cake and cupcakes for a 50th birthday surprise party.  I used the Betty Crocker Bake & Fill dome pan, frosted it in an ivory color buttercream (it looks yellow in the picture for some reason, but was a creamy ivory color in reality).  The handle, spout, and lid are shaped out of gumpaste.  I painted the knob on the lid with edible gold leaf and then piped a random lacey pattern using the same ivory colored buttercream with dots in between the squiggles, and on some of the dots, I painted the same gold leaf on to give the teapot some interest.   I also added some pink drop flowers and ivory colored leaves and vines on various parts of the teapot. I used the large star tip to pipe the pink buttercream on the cupcakes and then made a simple 5 petal flower in a slightly darker pink colored gumpaste and used a gold dragee for the middle of each flower.  I made the tea bag tags out of gumpaste and wrote different tea names on each one using an edible marker (ie:  "chamomile, Earl Grey, English breakfast, etc.) and the hostess set each cupcake in a porcelain teacup to put around the cake on the table.  I poked holes in the gumpaste tea bag tags before the gumpaste dried hard, and then after it dried, threaded some white thread through the hole and let each tag dangle out of the teacup/cupcake.  I think they all really liked it, including the birthday girl, who collects teapot and loves tea.  This was very simple and fun to do.