Its Not Goodbye, Its See You Soon

This weekend some of the gang had a surprise Going Away Party for my dear friend, Lyndsay. In a week she is heading out West to British Columbia for a new start and we couldn't let her leave without a proper send off. Despite the fact that everyone knows that I am a) always late and b) the worst at accidentally ruining surprises (seriously, do NOT tell me what you are getting people for Christmas) they entrusted me with keeping her occupied until everyone was ready for the big surprise. Thankfully I didn't say a peep, but I was 15 minutes late - what can I say, we were visiting my Mom and she was giving us all the good small town gossip.

But all was forgiven when I showed up because I brought these:

Chocolate and Vanilla Cupcakes with Bailey's Buttercream Icing

For ages I've wanted to try this Bailey's Buttercream Icing from Deb at smitten kitchen, but I just hadn't found the occasion for it. They don't have a lot of booze in them, but they just didn't seem like the kind of thing that you would take to a family party with kids and pregnant ladies everywhere. So a big party full of slightly inebriated adults seemed like the right place to test these out.

There were a big hit! Lyndsay is not even a big "sweets" person (unlike me, oh boy), but she loved these. Caught her eating just the icing off of one of them.

To make the little "Team Lyndsay" flags, I printed off a bunch of "L"s on Word using a funky font. Then I cut them out...while watching Tomorrow Never Dies. What can I say? I love Pierce Bronson as James Bond.

I cut some reg flags using the fancy cardstock from the Holiday cards I made this year, and then glued the letters to them. I then glued each red flag onto a small bamboo fork and used a paperclip to hold them together while they dried.

Then it was just a matter of sticking them into each cupcake. Voila!

All-in-all I think that we gave her a great send off and we're all excited to hear about her great adventures out West. I'm going to miss you, Lynds, but this just means that I have to come out to visit, right?