Icing Cupcakes By Candlelight (Or, My July Fourth)

My ears are still buzzing from the barrage of firework-sounds they were just exposed to at our friend's fourth of July shindig. At half-past-midnight on the 5th, it's now officially not Independence Day for the US, but I thought I'd share what I made in honor of the day.

I made a batch of vegan brownies with peanut-butter frosting for the vegan-ese that would be in attendance, and vanilla cupcakes with cream-cheese/orange frosting for everyone else. I had done my baking last night, and just needed frost them today...and wouldn't you know it? We had a really bad afternoon thunderstorm which left me frosting my cupcakes by the light of candles.

Eventually, though our power was still out, the natural light returned and helped me with my decorating. The Fourth is always a hard holiday for me to get into aesthetically...I'm not really a huge fan of the red/white/blue, stars & stripes motif decorations, so I schemed up another way to celebrate my country.  I printed out little flags from the nation's inception (the only US flag that I love) and made some little cupcake-toppers out of those as well as some notable presidents and/or founding fathers: 

I topped the cupcakes with people that I'm really happy + proud are/were American:

Tom Waits, William Faulkner, John Coltrane, Joey Ramone, Johnny Cash, Dorothy Parker, Ronnie Spector, Amelia Earhart, Edgar Allan Poe, David Lynch, etc.

They were such a hit! Lots of people kept theirs, which I think is really sweet and made me happy that I  figured out a personal way to celebrate the country I'm from.