Easy and quick cupcake decorating #2

 This is a very easy way to decorate holiday cupcakes.  Everyone will love these, you will get tons of compliments and everyone will want to know how you did it!  Kids love them, they're festive and you will end up feeling like Martha Stewart...That's a very rewarding feeling, haha!

What you need (tips, bags, gel color, luster dusts, gumpaste and star cutter can be found at Hobby Lobby and Michael's)
2 pastry bags (I like 20 inch disposable bags)
Wilton 1M tip
Large open star tip (Wilton #199 will work, Ateco also makes one you may also see it called a "French tip")
Green tinted buttercream
Blue tinted buttercream
Gumpaste or fondant
yellow food coloring gel
Gold and silver luster dusts
PME SnowFlake plunger
Wilton fondant star cutter (medium size out of the set of 3)
small paint brush
Colored round sprinkles

First you will want to tint some of your gumpaste yellow.  Put some cornstarch down on a clean flat surface and roll out the yellow gumpaste or fondant.  Cut out stars, lay flat and allow to dry.  If you used gumpaste they will be dry within an hour, if you used fondant allow them to dry overnight.

With the white gumpaste, roll out the same way as the yellow. Once you roll the gumpaste out, allow it to lay out for about 15 minutes.  Because the PME plunger is so detailed, you will need for the gumpaste to dry a little bit.  Dip your PME cutter in cornstartch, once the gumpaste is ready, push the snowflake cutter into the gumpaste, pressing down and pushing the plunger.  Pick the cutter up, hit the release and allow snowflake to dry on a flat surface.
Brush the gold luster dust all over the stars and brush the silver luster dust all over the snowflakes.  (A little goes a LONG way with luster dust.)  Set aside.

Once you have your pastry bags fitted with the decorator tips and filled with the icing (The bag with the 1M tip gets the green icing and the French tip gets the blue icing), you can begin to decorate.

For the Christmas trees
With the 1M tip, to create the tree look, with a medium pressure holding the tip above the cupcake, start on the outside and swirl your way in and up, I like to go in a counter clockwise motion.  You just made a tree, yay!  If you didn't quite get it the first time, it's ok...Just scrape the icing off, into a bowl and try again.
Sprinkle your tree with some colored round sprinkles, to mimic lights and top with a sparkly gumpaste star.

For the snowflakes
With the open star/french tip fitted bag with the blue buttercream, you want to start on the outside of the cupcake and work your way in but not up.  Place a sparkly snowflake in the middle and you're finished!