Ah, don't you love birthday time when your child wants to bring cupcakes to school with the requisite abundance of icing and sprinkles? Well, no doubt about it, kids love sprinkling the sprinkles on... and because they are called sprinkles, that is just what we do!

Here is an easier way to do sprinkles, as well as to trick your child into thinking this is the better way to do it, so you won't be sweeping up stray sprinkles for weeks to come.

First, get a small plate, it doesn't need to be much bigger than the size of the cupcakes. Then have your child pick 2-4 sprinkle colors. Then, carefully pour the sprinkles onto the plate in a pattern. If you have two colors, sprinkle on each side of the plate, making sure they carefully meet in a line at the center. Then when your child dips the cupcake into the sprinkles, one side will be one color and the other the second color.

Along these lines, you can also do alternating lines on the plate or divide it into quarters like a pinweel, so there are four different colors on the cupcake. If you want to get really creative, you can make different patterns or even letters in sprinkles by dipping it on two separate plates. The older your child is, the more creative you can be.

And because you aren't "sprinkling", there won't be any mess!