A Local We're Totes Crushing On

She could have been a success by virtue of her design talents alone, but she took the whole thing a couple of steps further. She, by the way, is the amazingly talented, unbelievably cute Jessie Oleson. What she did, first, was to create a character: a cupcake called Cuppie fashioned from a piece of leftover cake batter. Her charming cartoons put Cuppie into familiar scenes, bizarre adventures and comic situations; she does 8 to 10 of these a day, usually in watercolor; the pictures have the charm and appeal of Babar books, the genius of artlessness. Oh yes, Jessie sells them online.

But she doesn't end it there. No, there's another website, a blog called Cakespy, that leverages Cuppie's cuteness with rather more serious stuff about baking, recipes and such. Jessie, who moved here from New York, has a nationwide network of spies keeping her updated. And when it was time to celebrate her 28th birthday last month, she picked Cupcake Royale's store in Ballard.