Cupcake Love-in

After last year’s 1st Annual Cupcake Love-in, our team looked back in amazement at all the support we received from our community! This year has been no exception! Once again we have the support from most of last year’s sponsors as well as many new ones!

We can’t think of a better place to throw a party than the Hotel Valley Ho, so we are thrilled to be returning for our 2nd year!  Jesse Thompson, Jennifer Rueb, Kristin Heggli and the entire staff have been an absolute dream to work with.  We think it’s the coolest place for a Love-in!

Returning sponsors Hickman’s Family Farms, Shamrock Farms, 3 Monkey’s Printing, Yelp Phoenix, Page.ly, Kerrygold Butter, Locals Only Phoenix, ABC Cake Decorating & Supply and Jared Blake Entertainment have been instrumental in the success of our event and didn’t hesitate to give us a YES to sponsoring our 2nd Annual event. A huge thanks to all of you!

Brand X T-shirts has gone above and beyond with their support for our event. For every Love-in t-shirt they sell, they give back a portion to CASS. Got to love that! Thank you Charles and everyone at Brand X!  Check out the Love-in tees here!

Mike Fazio of Snapbooth Entertaiment is providing his state-of-the-art photo booth for all our attendees to take some fun & whacky keepsake photos!  Go by and give Mike some love!

Our amazing tech sponsors: Heidi Claunch of Blue Sparrow Designs who designed and manages this website.  We appreciate your tireless dedication!  The lovely girls at SeeSaw Designs who created our adorable logo, which will live on as long as our event does. Jordon Roberts of Jordon Roberts Design who has created our “oh, so cool” posters. The stylish Paige Dell’Armi of Knoodle, a social media guru who helps with our FB & Twitter accounts as well as creating our cool FB contests. You’re a rockstar and we love you! Sami Leopoldi of SEO Penguin, one of the nicest people we know and who helps with our SEO, FB and Twitter.

The newbies! Thank you SanTan VW, local valley Volkswagon dealership who are big on community and are one of our premier sponsors. Check out their new 2012 VW Beetle at our event. Thank you AZ Foothills Magazaine for coming on as our media partner this year!  Westar Kitchen & Bath are providing their state-of-the-art kitchen display to bring you live baking demos. Whole Foods Market are a sponsor as well as a particpant this year. We are so lucky to have them! Christy Alvarado of CA Designs is a local jewelry designer who created an adorable cupcake charm that will be sold on our website as well as the event. A portion of her sales will go back to CASS.  She is also donating charms for our VIP Schwag Bags. Thank you Christy!  Mom It Forward will be keeping all the kiddos in check at the Kids Decorating Table.  Thank you Associated Ad & Document Services for taking care of our printing needs! Dine 4 AZ, Halo Piercing & Jewelry, Metromint, Phoenix Dining Cards, Singing Dog Vanilla, Popchips, FIJI Water, Larabar, Dress My Cupcake and Fairytale Brownies are sponsors as well as donors for our gift bags. Thank you all so much!

A special thank you to Jeff Moriarty and all the gang at Phoenix Innovation Foundation! We really appreciate all your help with our event this year! Another special thank you to Andi Barness, Thomas Smith, Chef Aaron May, Wynter Holden, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Jenn McKinlay, Sharon Cochran of Rock-n-Couture, Julie Zagars, Patti Diamant, Kathy Monkman, Katie Charland, Shauna Jean at Jam, Jayme Berg, Gwen Walters, Sarah Chambers, Mark Hayden, Brian Shaler, all our volunteers and all our awesome donors!

We couldn’t put this event on without all of you!

See you all on Sunday, October 30th!

The Cupcake Love-in Team!

Last year when Team Cupcake started planning the Valley’s first Cupcake Love-in, the hope was that a few folks would buy a ticket, show up, have fun and help raise money for the selected charities. Initially, ticket sales moved at a snail’s pace until the Thursday prior to the event when suddenly, POOF! tickets were nearly sold out. Calls and requests for tickets from folks who had missed out came flooding in. Team Cupcake was at a loss. Obviously, we wanted to open the doors to everyone who wanted to come, but we also had an obligation to the hosting venue, The Hotel Valley Ho and to the safety and comfort of our ticketholders and participants as well as to the regulations put forth by the Fire Marshall to not oversell tickets.

With the experience of last year under our collective belt, we are proud to announce that the 2011 Cupcake Love-in will take place on Sunday, October 30, 2011. The Hotel Valley Ho has once again generously offered to sponsor the venue and will provide an additional ballroom. This means that there will more of the Valley’s talented pastry chefs, bakers, restaurants and caterers on hand with their sweet treats and more tickets available for purchase! More tickets mean that more funds will be raised for this year’s beneficiary, Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS). As the largest provider of shelter and services to the Valley’s homeless, CASS was an easy choice for us. Currently, CASS provides shelter and services to families and individuals, including our veterans. It is able to provide nearly 1000 folks with a place to sleep each night. To learn more about CASS, please visit their website at www.cassaz.org and learn about other ways you may help in addition to attending the Cupcake Love-in.

A few additions and changes have been made in an effort to make this year’s event even bigger and better than the last! For example, a VIP reception has been added from 10:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. for those cupcake fanatics who want an early crack at tasting the mini offerings of our chefs. For $50, you may arrive an hour prior to the official opening of the doors and enjoy a savory bite courtesy of Chefs Wiley and Currid at Café ZuZu, a welcome beverage, more time to visit with your favorite Valley cupcake makers and a VIP gift bag created exclusively for the Cupcake Love-in by a local Valley artist EA Designs  and filled with a selection of treats ranging from Singing Dog Vanilla samples to Fairytale Brownies to name a few. There will be 100 VIP tickets available this year.

This year, each guest will be given a wristband with 7 cupcake sampling tickets. If one still has room for more cupcakes, additional sampling tickets will be available for purchase on site. All proceeds will benefit CASS.

The same fun activities that were so popular last year including the kids cupcake decorating corner, face painting, an on-site DJ, Snapbooth photo booth, Brand X t-shirts for made on-site tees, raffle prize drawings, a decorated cupcake competition for the chefs and kids, and of course, the cupcake eating competition are returning. There is something for little kids and big kids alike!

Please read on to see a number of frequently asked questions answered at last!

• Where and when is the Cupcake Love-in?
  Hotel Valley Ho, 6850 E. Main Street, Scottsdale on Sunday,October 30.
• When do tickets go on sale?
  Friday, September 30th
• Where may I purchase tickets?
  They will be available EXCLUSIVELY on-line at www.stayclassy.com.
• Can I purchase tickets at the door on the day of the event?
  No. There will be NO tickets sold at the door or otherwise.
• What kinds of tickets are available and h0w much are they?
  Cupcake VIP $50.00 (doors open at 10 a.m.)
  Cupcake LOVERS $20.00 &
  Cupcake Loving KIDS 10 and under $5.00 (doors open at 11 a.m.)
  Remember that 100% of the proceeds from ticket sales benefit CASS.
• Where may I purchase raffle tickets?
  These may be purchased on-line with your entry ticket at $1.00 each. 100% of the raffle ticket proceeds will directly benefit CASS.
• May I take a box of those little cuties home with me?
  No. All cupcakes must be consumed on site. For reasons of liability and in cooperation with the regulations of the Maricopa County Health and Environmental Services, you may not take cupcakes home with you. Please come with your sweet tooth ready to enjoy those sweet treats on site! Thank you in advance for your cooperation and understanding.
• Remember to visit www.cupcakelovein.com  for more information and updates.

Planning for the 2011 Cupcake Love-in is in full swing! We are so grateful for and often delightfully stunned by the overwhelming generosity of our sponsors, donors and of course… our local community of bakers, chefs, restaurants, cupcakeries and caterers who so graciously give of their time, product, energy and talent in support of this fundraising event. This year we have the honor of working with them as a community in support of Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS). Without the fruits of their labor, the Cupcake Love-in wouldn’t be the sweet affair that it is. With that said, we would like to reveal the 2011 Cupcake Love-in line up… (drum roll, please)

Returning Cupcake Love-in participants include winners of the cupcake competitions- Arcadia Farms- Best Classic Cupcake, Barb’s Bakery- People’s Choice, Cupcake Café- Best Savory Cupcake, Modern Steak-Most Outrageous Cupcake and Tammie Coe- Best Frosting. There were so many great entries, but these bakers took the cupcake, so to speak! What will they dream up this year? The competition will be fun and fierce!

Additional veterans of the 2010 Cupcake Love-in include Bloom, Bourbon Steak, Butter & Me, Cruelty Free Cupcakes, La Dolce Pesca, Liberty Market, Nothing Bundt Cakes-Scottsdale, Olive & Ivy, Posh, SweetArt Bakery and Tracy Dempsey Originals.

We are excited to introduce our community of Cupcake Love-in fans and supporters to the many new bakers, chefs and restaurants joining us this year. Given how many of our cupcake baking friends responded with a “yes, count us in!”, it seems that our love affair with that sweet little frosted cake is here to stay! We welcome our new Cupcake Love-in participants- Arrogant Butcher, Churn, Cookies from Home, Cowboy Ciao, Cupcakes by Design, D’licious Dishes, Fez on Central, NCounter, Pink Velvet Cakery, Santa Barbara Catering Company, Simply Sweets, Slade Grove Creative Gourmet, The Spotted Donkey Cantina Switch, TLC Bakery, Top it Cupcakes, Treehouse Bakery, Two Spoons Desserts, Urban Cookies and Whole Foods Bakery, Whoopie Pie Baking Company and 24 Carrots.

It will be exciting to see and taste what all of these talented chefs bring to the party!

Look for more announcements and teasers as Sunday, October 30th draws near. We look forward to another successful Cupcake Love-in and a chance to make a difference in our community through the help and support of our friends in cupcakes and YOU.

After all was said and done after our inaugural Cupcake Love-In on 10.10.10, we just couldn’t wait an entire year for the next one! So was born the idea of  the “mini” Love-In event. Our first one back in February – Cupcakes + Cocktails – was lots of fun and brought back three of our awesome bakers and about 35 cupcake-loving attendees to Citizen Public House. We raised money for Lost Our Home Pet Foundation, sipped on cupcake-inspired cocktails, gave out raffle prizes and fun was had by all!

Tammie Coe Cakes

Sooo, this time around we’re spreading the love to downtown Phoenix where we will visit three fabulous central locations along the light rail. On Thursday, June 16 from 6 – 9pm, about 45 of our closest friends along with Tammie Coe Cakes, Sweet Art Bakery, Nothing Bundt Cakes and our Love-In team will descend upon FEZ (Stop 1), followed by Hula’s Modern Tiki (Stop 2) and finally Smeeks (Stop 3).  At FEZ, we’ll enjoy mini cupcake samples and a specially

Nothing Bundt Cakes

crafted cocktail. Hula’s is generously extending their amazing happy hour and we will sample some more sweet treats. And finally, to put the final sugar cube in the coffin, we cap off the night decorating our own works of edible art with fun and nostalgic toppings from Smeeks!

Sweet Art Bakery

Thank you to Brand X for providing our guests with more great t-shirts! A portion of this event’s proceeds will go to benefit Crisis Nursery.