Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting in a Graveyard Scene, 10/20

It is getting closer to Halloween and my holiday spirit is picking up. For this week's design, I incorporated some ideas from What's New Cupcake, by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, along with my own ideas. For the base cupcake, I used red velvet--Martha Stewart's recipe--because it seemed kind of appropriate. The frosting, of course, was cream cheese (my own combination and ratio of ingredients). After frosting, I rolled the cupcakes in ground-up chocolate cookies to make the "dirt," thus beginning my graveyard scene. On separate occasions, I made the trees (the outline of which came from What's New Cupcake) and the grave markers (broken up bits of graham cracker, dipped in melting chocolate, and piped on RIP letters. The rest is store-bought courtesy of Walgreens--candy corn pumpkins and gummy skeletons I cut into pieces and stuck in the frosting. The scene was put together hastily before lunch, but the cute factor is still there, and I like the way it turned out. I think under different circumstances I would like to have put these on a platter and sprinkled more "dirt" on the bottom to fill in the spaces and make it REALLY festive, but I can live with the outcome for today.

PS. As ordered by my Dad, I have reserved some of the leftover cupcakes for him, that are not to be frozen by Mom--this rule (#576 in our lifetime--me, Steve and Erin, that is) is called the King's Fifth (maybe he needs a shirt with this on it). This rule does have more practicality behind it than the Neopolitan ice cream rule though!!!