My friend's son is obsessed with the solar system and planets. He is only 4 and basically a boy genius (that's a whole other story). Anyway she asked me to make cupcakes for his party with each one looking like one of the planets. Any ideas 
He is the kind of kid that will point out if one thing is not completeley accurate 
You could do it with rolled buttercream.. make them look like the planets.. red for mars.. blue for venus.. earth looks like earth with blue and green and white.. different shades of rusty red for jupiter.. you could make the rings for saturn and neptune and stuff.. and so on. Rolled buttercream tastes better than most fondants. You could use fondant too.. I like fondex for flavor.. mmmmm. You could do it all in plain buttercream too.. make it a crusting one and you can swirl the different colors on and use the viva method to get it smooth and just do fondant/gumpaste for the rings. Good luck.. and post pictures.
How about using chocolate melt on a picture of a planet and when it's dry, peel it off and stick it in the middle of a cupcake? I got idea from a book "Whimsical Bakehouse" chocolate pictures instruction.
I did a cake for my son's birthday in March. What I did was spray the frosting blue, used different sized vanilla wafer cookies for the planets and decorated them with different colored piping gel. I then blended it with a damp finger or made swirls with a toothpick. We made the planetary rings with clear gel and added different colored sugars. We did all of this a day before the birthday so by the time he ate the cake the "cookie part had softened up under the gel and you didn't know it was there but still had the 3D appearance. I still need to work on my piping of course and it wasn't perfect but he was happy with things.
Edible images with pictures of the planets will look cool on top of the cupcakes.
ooooo, where would I get edible images of planets 
That sounds great but i don't have any of that equipement at home, i am just starting out. I didn't know they existed.
I like the idea of the chocolate transfer, and then you can place it in top of the cupcakes. If you print out the planets and use the different colored candy melts I think you could do it really easily that way.
pic to help
http://ixpats.com/bestoftheweb/wp-uploads/earth_planets_size_comparison.jpg
----
could just cover each cupcake top w/ circle of white fondant and then paint them...note how most are just mottled blobs of color.
only w/ Earth, Jupiter and Saturn do you have to do more detail
for Saturn's rings --- royal icing piped in semicircles on wax paper -- allowed to harden and then glued to cupcake w/ more RI
HTH
ooooo, where would I get edible images of planets
That sounds great but i don't have any of that equipement at home, i am just starting out. I didn't know they existed.
I would google pictures of the different planets and take them to the grocery store. Hopefully they will print them for you.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%