Base and monogram are hand painted. The border "gumballs" are all fondant because I made the mistake of displaying about 100+ pretty gumballs in a huge trifle bowl and then realized every time my husband walked thru my cake room he was grabbing one!! I had almost the entire cake trimmed and ran short by about 5-6 gumballs...had to pull them off and make another batch of fondant!! Ughhhh