Hello all,

I am strictly an amateur decorator. I have done wedding cakes etc... but only for friends and family (usually as a wedding gift!). I'm going to be making my nephews first birthday cake in a few weeks (he is my twin brother's son, born the day after my own daughter - we were in hospital together in fact). Needless to say, I will be doing both cakes that weekend for the soon to be one-year-olds. He is doing a 50's diner/drive-in theme. I'm doing a 3-D drive in and diner on top of a full sheet cake. I was thinking that I would make the sides of the sheet look like the backs of the old vinyl diner booth seats. Any idea on a quick easy way of achieving a "vinyl" look on sides of cake? Fruit roll-ups? Modeling chocolate (which I've never worked with)?

I am making most of the decorations for both cakes well in advance out of fondant to eliminate last minute rush since I'm also hosting a party for around 50 people myself.

Attached is a picture of the "sign" going on top of his "diner"

you could probably do it in fondant. Paint it with gel color mixed w/ vodka.

on the cake boss show last week they used steam quickly on the fondant and it came out shiny. I haven't tried it yet.