Ornament Review: Itsy Bitsy Cupcake - 2014 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Looks like a cute but creepy professionally decorated cupcake

Cons: The legs are too flexible

The Bottom Line:

Cute cupcake spider

A great series compliment

Crawls into your heart

The Itsy Bitsy Cupcake Crawled Onto the Dessert Plate

I am in serious trouble.  Since I started collecting Hallmark ornaments, I have avoided their Halloween ornaments.  I don’t decorate for Halloween.  I will not start decorating for Halloween.  But this year, I bought two of them, and I think with Itsy Bitsy Cupcake, I might be committed.

This ornament is a compliment to the Christmas Cupcake series, which features festively decorated cupcakes.  This cupcake is decorated to look like a creepy spider.  The little bit of the cupcake we can see above the purple cupcake foil makes it obvious it is chocolate.  The “frosting” is also black, but it’s poufy in a way you can only get with a professional (or a decoration like this).  The end result is a large spider body that is a bit cute even for those who don’t like spiders.  Two eyes and a red nose have been glued into the fabric used as frosting, and the way they peer out at you is actually a little cute.  It has eight red pipe cleaners (or something similar) coming out of it for the legs.

The result is actually pretty good.  It does look like a cupcake, however, it looks like one that has been dressed up for Halloween.  I can picture walking into a store and finding real cupcakes like this for sale.  That’s how nice it looks.  And it’s got the right balance to look spooky and cute at the same time.  This is important, and the balance is right.  Everyone knows it is for Halloween, yet it’s not going to scare someone who is afraid of spiders.

My only issue with this ornament is the legs.  Despite how they look in the pictures, they are actually easily bent.  When I unwrapped him from the box, they were bent around and looked bad.  I was able to straight all but one fairly easily, but that one still sticks off at a weird angle.  And because of how they look, you really have to find a place to hang this ornament.  For those of us with no Halloween tree, that creates a problem.

On the other hand, it does hang straight and level when you use the thread that comes up as a hook.

I already know I will be buying a Halloween ornament next year – a series compliment to the Cookie Cutter series.  But for this year, I will keep enjoying Itsy Bitsy Cupcake and try to figure out if this is the start of a new collection for me.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Christmas Cupcakes series.

Price: $12.95