Well I just made my first Colette Peters cake. It's the cactus one in my photos.
This darn cake took forever to make. It wasn't hard just took forever. With all the tiny needles!!!! The book said to make 300 so I made about 600 knowing some would break. Well it wasn't enough. This cake took so many needles I thought I was going to go mad.
However, with all the time it took it was well worth it. My sister (whom everyone has heard about how "honest" she is about all my cakes) came over and saw it. Her mouth fell open and she said said "Wow! Now that is a great cake!"
I don't know why but it seems like my cakes look better in person then they do on the photos. Plus my photos always seem to scan blurry on this site but no where else.
Oh well, glad it's done. Hope my uncle likes it.
I do have one question though. Since the needles are all made from royal icing and they are stuck in the buttercream, will they be all melted by morning? The birthday is tomorrow and I hope it still looks ok. I would hate to think I did all that work only to have it look melted.
Joanne
OMG Joanne - that cake is AMAZING!!!!! Is the "pot" cake too? It looks so real.
As far as the royal and the buttercream, you should be fine. I did my firetruck cake the day before the party and all the royal did just fine stuck to the buttercream. I don't think it even got soft. It looked just as good the next afternoon as when I stuck it on the day before.
Amazing, amazing, amazing cake!!!!!!!
Melissa
Awesome cake. I'm sure your uncle will love it.
I made that cake also and the needles were the worst! I piped them onto waxed paper and they were sticking to it when I tried to remove them. I have a tweezer that I use for cake decorating to insert each one into the cactus. Very tedious work but well worth the effort. Great job on the cake and I'm glad your sister liked it. 
Thanks for all the nice remarks.
Melissa, No the pot is not cake. It's real. I filled the pot with beans then put a layer of foil over them. Then I put the cake down on the foil (cake was on a board) and put the dirt (Oreo's) around to pack it down.
I used the ball pan. The directions are in Colette's Cakes The Art of Cake Decorating.
I have to say this is a very easy cake to do but it takes a long time to do it. If you make it make tons more needles then you think you will need even then you will most likely need more.
I'm so thrilled to have been able to make one of Colettes cakes and have it come out looking pretty good. Of course it could be better but then again she is Colette Peters and I'm just a newbie at all this 
For what it's worth - When I made my mini cactus, Lili (my instructor) said to just pipe straight strings of icing the whole length of a cookie sheet. The things broke as I tried to take them off the waxed paper, and ended up being the right size...(was a lot easier for a newbie than trying to make them a certain length. Not sure if it would be any use to a longtime decorator, but...)
What a great group we have here! Thanks for all the nice remarks. It sure makes me feel good. I'm not the most confident when it comes to my cakes 
Oh and funny you should say that about making the long string of royal icing and then breaking it. I did two cookie sheet full of little lines then finally decided I could do a whole line then cut it with a knife before it dried so I could make them the size I wanted.
The last sheet of lines I did I just left and broke them off like you said. It was a lot easier to do that.
Thanks for the compliment on my purse cake too
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