Background: My Mother's 90th birthday was late November, and as a newbie decorator, I wanted to bake and decorate her cake (a quilt-top design) for the party we were having. My teacher agreed to "help" me with it, but as we "decorators" will do, he wound up almost entirely decorating the cake himself (I had baked a half sheet and a quarter sheet and taken them to his house). When I took them home, it was a windy day and the lid of the half sheet was not taped down...still not sure why not. Well, the wind tried to take the cake out of my hands, and in desperately hanging onto it, I stuck three fingers and my car keys into the top of the cake and squashing the whole thing into my "front"! I was almost in tears when I saw what I'd done to it, but I immediately called him and said "don't throw away any of the icing bags!" I went back and got the bags, and then came home and spent a couple of hours repairing the damage (he couldn't do it, he had company coming that afternoon). Before the disaster, I could not claim the cake as my work, but let me tell you, after I finished the repairs, I sure claimed it!!! Charlie (teacher) said, "as long as you didn't drop it and smash it into a million pieces, you can salvage it!" It was a really good lesson!

At the party, even the ones who knew what had happened couldn't see where the damage had been, so all was well that ended well, and my Mother was very surprised and very pleased.

If anybody wants to see the before and after photos, let me know and I will post them. Janice aka veejaytx

Oh, I would love to see them. I have had several disasters of my own. Including being out of practice with the decorating. So I posted a practice on today in the uncatergorized other cake section. But I am so glad that you were able to save it for your mom's special day.
~Tanya

Hi, Me again. There may be a way to do two pictures at once, I'll have to think about that, and it is too early. Can you tell I'm sleep deprived?

Anyway, here is the repaired cake. I had to replace the top right quarter, and redo most of the bottom edge. Turned out ok, thank goodness!
Actually, I amazed myself, I only had one class in mid-October at my senior center, and this was November 27th!
Janice

Well, I don't know what happened to the damaged cake posting, so I'm trying again. As I said, I am sleep deprived all the time, and daylight saving started today, oh joy, now for a couple of weeks I'll look at the time and think "but it's really only...".

I had to replace the top right quarter, where those big gouges are, as well as redoing the bottom edge, where it was squashed. Janice

Trying to put this picture in here is becoming a disaster! Think I'd better go back to bed for a while when this is done!

I looked at your cake posting, Tanya! It is beautiful! Janice

Sorry Tanya, and anybody else trying to see these photos. I don't know why it isn't attaching, and there isn't anything in the download...did these just like the repaired photo. I'll go sleep an hour or two and try again later. Thanks Janice

Your cake looks great for any damage that may have been done to it! Have a nice nap!

Well, that was an extended nap, for sure. Guess my weeks of not sleeping but a couple of hours at a time caught up with me!

I'm going to try again to attach the photo of Mother's damaged cake! Janice

ps I don't know exactly what I've done wrong, but figured out if I put the photos in "My Photos" I think you can see this now, at least I hope that is how it works. Don't know why it won't just attach to the message, if anybody knows what I'm doing to mess it up please let me know.

I saw your cakes in the gallery, you did a superb job of recover!!!!