How to Make Fall Leaf Cupcake Wrappers

Cupcake wrappers are so cute.  Until you bake cupcakes in them.  Then they turn translucent and weird and not cute any more.  It's kind of sad, really.  But luckily, some clever person thought of creating cupcake wrappers to camouflage the disappointing reality of cupcake papers. 

First, you'll need a template.  I've been using this template for years now, and haven't a clue where I found it originally.  But you can Google "free printable cupcake wrappers" and find hundreds of templates you can download and use for this project.  Find a template, and cut some basic cupcake wrappers out of cardstock.

Just the cardstock is nice, but we haven't really tapped the cuteness potential yet.  For these fall leaves cupcake wrappers, get a couple small leaf punches (only a few dollars each at the craft store--you'd spend more than that on commercial cupcake wrappers) and cut out some leaf shapes.  The leaves look especially great if you make them out of a kind of mottled scrapbook paper and bend them slightly so they're not completely flat.

Then go to town with the hot glue gun!  

See how nice the leaves look with that little bit of bend?  Love the added dimension and texture.

use your glue gun or a bit of tape to connect the ends of the cupcake wrapper and make this lovely, 3D shape.

Pop some cupcakes in those beauties and you have a great looking fall dessert!  Who wouldn't want some of these for any event this autumn?

Top them off with some swirling fall leaves cupcake toppers and some gumpaste pumpkins, and WOW.  

These were chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream, but I'm thinking apple spice cupcakes or pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing would be even better for Thanksgiving.  What's your favorite fall flavor?  Have a great cupcake recipe for it?  I love trying new recipes!