Am doing a small cake at the end of october for a friend. she knows what flavor she wants, but unsure of the design. so i said id come up with something as a surprise. So far teh filling she wants is perishable so will have to be kept in the fridge.. but could change if the restaurant cant put it in their fridge. I am totally stuck for ideas! haha. The dinner will be at a mexican restaurant, but have just done a mexican cake (see photos) so would like to do something different. she loves tattoo's and is really into that vintage pinup girl style. Favorite colour is lime green. Id love to do something in the pinup type tattooish style but im really stuck! especially seeing as im about as girly-girl as they come! haha. Does anyone have any ideas? Keeping in mind my skill level is quite minimal...

Thankyou!

Sounds cool. I'm wondering if you couldn't just do it in lime green with a black damask design. I think damask has a vintage feel but a cool style and the lime green would be an unexpected update. That's just a simple design idea. I have yet to figure out how I'm going to do damask on a cake I'm making for a friend's wedding so I can't really say how I'd execute that.

I might be buying a printer that uses food safe ink and prints on wafer/rice paper that way I can just print out anything I want and "transfer" it to my fondant. At least I'm telling myself it's that simple. You could also get a stencil and use royal icing so the design will stick out off the fondant a little. I watched a video on that tho and it doesn't seem extremely easy. Well it seems easy but perfect results don't seem easy. You would probably have to do a lot of touching up and cleaning up of the detail for areas that had some icing go under the stencil. You could just use a little smooth tipped tool to touch-up those areas. Also, I've read you can use a painters tape to tape the stencil on or have someone hold it for you.

I might be able to think of some other more complicated ideas but that seems nice and simple but beautiful and cool, just like a pinup girl.

i saw a programme about bleeding heart bakery with pin up girls on there cakes might be worth a look for inspiration

Following on with the damask stencils... wiping the royal icing or buttercream over the stencil onto the cake looks a bit scary to me. But I have just bought some stencils as I saw a video of a lady who just tapped on some lustre dust instead of RI or BC and the effect was absolutely gorgeous and it looked a bit easier than the frosting method.

I found a couple pinup girl/tattoo cakes in the galleries that might help give you some inspiration.

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1830552

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/806063

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2001539

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1202339

Thank you all for your replies! I love the idea of damask on a lime green base.. especially that luster dust idea! that sounds gorgeous! Will check out those two bakeries and see if there is anything there. =) and cakelady.. if i could draw like those amazing artists, I would have no worries! lol. unfortunately I am challenged when it comes to just drawing a stick figure! haha.

hmm well my simple easy cake that I have to do in between doing 3 major assignments idea seems to have gone out the window. She has no requested I do a day of the dead candy skull. ahhhh! would not know where to start there, both on whether there are any cultural traditions attached which would make it offensive for me to make, and in the process of actually make it. Think i may have to say no to this one.

ok, well now i need a little vent. The more I think about this.. the more it makes me cranky. This cake started off as a 'small cake", well no at first I said I couldnt do it because I am so flat out with uni work right now.. then I said I could squeeze it in because I felt bad and thought it would be some good stress relief for me.. so small cake, ok great! kinda broke atm too, so that works out well. I take care of design as a surprise and also because this is a present (as all my cakes are). This will work out well so then I can find something simple but still something that will will look good.. or at least ok?? And now the cake has jumped to serve 30 people with an intricate design! ah! why does this always happen! Same has happened with a baby shower im throwing this weekend and doing all the cooking for.. a small gathering that somehow turned into 30 adults and 8 kids?!?!?! WTH! I LOVE doing these things for people, and helping where I can, and when I offer to do something I do sincerely mean it, but really! a little bit of appreciation and consideration would be great! and i dont really think thats so much to ask! Turns out of course that it is. Oh this has made me so cranky now! I also have to pay for dinner (just for myself) at this restaurant.. which is of course not a cheap place! raaa! anyway, vent out, will just tell her no to the candy skull, I dont feel comfortable as I dont know the cultural connotations attached, will come up with my own design or thats it. Cant afford time or money wise for anything else to be done. MUST LEARN TO START SAYING 'NO!'. lol.

I got into this whole thing so I could make my own wedding cake and then offered to make my boyfriend's sister's cake as our gift to her. I figure we can do that for people and the tools will more than pay for themselves. Heck, they'll do that with just one wedding cake.

Anywho, it was at first 100 ppl and she didn't care what the cake looked like at all as long as I incorporated her one color into it. Cool, thinks I. No expectations mean less stress on me and a bigger smile on her face when she sees it. *sigh* Now the guest count is steadily rising, she wants it square now (I had only bought round pans and dummies thus far and was quite happy to only use those until I had more mula to buy more "stuff"), and she started picking out these horrid designs which don't belong anywhere near a wedding cake lol.

Not sure what to do and how much money I want to put out for this as I am literally just starting. My boyfriend is paying for half of everything I buy which helps but I still don't want to end up with cabinets full of unused pans and whatnot. This stuff is not cheap.

Oh and you know what's funny, I was just organizing one of my cupboards and had some cupcake papers (at a loss for what they're really called right now) in there. I had bought 2 different kinds to use together and one set was lime green and the other, you guessed it, black damask. lol

noahsmummy: I would give this friend a call and tell her that you had finally come up with some ideas on the first thing she told you and were figuring out how to go about them when she comes back and tells you that her idea for the cake has changed and the list of people attending as grown. The reason you are calling her is that you don't agree with the connotations behind the new idea and a cake for 30 adults and 8 children is not a small cake. You have other orders to fill and while you could use the money you are just have a real problem with the new idea and do not feel comfortable making a cake with that design. also you don't really have the money to eat at that particular restaraunt at this time. Tell her that you hope that there are no hard feelings about this. If you tell her now, she still has time to get another cake from someone else. Best wishes.

Hi there,
I am running out of new ideas for cakes for my boys--
I am pretty creative, and not too cack-handed with a bit of icing, but looking for new ideas (tried and tested always better).
Has anyone got any ideas for the 3 birthdays that are coming up this spring!?!? 1 yr old, 4 yr and 6 yrs.

Hi, I'm not sure what a dead candy skull is however I did a skull cake and it was not too difficult to do. It's in my photos.

Thanks everybody for your help. I was going to go with the lime green gift box with black damask stenciling and a black loop bow on top.. but of course.. i couldnt find a reasonably priced stencil anywhere! so i had to change my whole theme and ended up with this:
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2182441

She loved it, and im happy with how it turned out, just still wish i could have done pin up style!

thanks again!