What in carnation?!?

I discovered that I LOVE making gumpaste flowers!!  The carnations were my fave flower from this course, so when the time came to put our skills onto a cake, I chose to use the carnation.  I tried something new with these carnations and put a little purple cake sparkles on the flower edges... not sure I really like it, but it was worth a try :)  Forgive the lack of cohesive design on this one- I was just trying a bunch of things at once... and also learned that purple turns kinda blue when it dries.  Good to know...

Violets, violets, and more violets!

I made this cake for my mother in law for her birthday.  It was a 2-layer 8" round chocolate cake with fresh strawberries, and a super creamy and rich cream cheese frosting (TOO creamy- it never crusted like a normal icing- ooops!!).  I placed an 8" mirror (with plastic wrap on the cake side to prevent a messy situation) on top of the cake.  I made a flower pot cake and iced it with the cream cheese frosting (maybe not the best idea... I'll explain in a moment), and then covered it with a terra cotta dyed fondant (Satin Ice brand)... the icing never set up, so the fondant kept trying to slide off the cake- ACK!  I hid the sliding fondant as best as I could with royal icing violets I had made for this cake.  All said and done, there were 147 violets in total.

My fondant may not have been flawless, but the cake was still super yummy :)