I made the Hershey's cake on the back of the cocoa box and it is sticky as all heck! It tastes good and usually, for me, it's hard to find a sweet, chocolately cake from scratch. It is falling apart as I am trying to cut it. I take it my crumb coat is not thin enough because (on my last cake--we'll see how it is with this one) I am still pulling up crumbs with my "final" coat and having to do it over again. I'm also reading through an assortment of books and generally they are saying 2 cups of icing and I have been using more than that, which I hate.

I am having trouble with the cake board....I can't keep it clean while decorating the cake. I tried to put wax paper strips under it and it's ripping the cake.

Put the cake in the freezer for one hour and relax while it is in there. Once you take it out of the freezer it should be easier to cut because the moisture in the cake will be cold. Make a simple syrup mixture to coat the cake with and use as your crumb coating. If it works right, the syrup will harden enough that you can apply a smaller amount of icing.

I find that when I stress out and rush things I end up having more problems and taking more time to get things right.

Good luck.

Can you stick the cake in the fridge for a while to let the icing firm up before adding a final coat? Sometimes that works quite well.

Sorry the cake didn't turn out the way you'd hoped. I wonder if you underbaked it a tad?

Don't worry about not take course II. You can learn a lot on your own--by practicing, from books, and from this website!
If you want to learn Wilton stuff specifically, their yearbooks have picture tutorials that are quite helpful.

Good luck!