Okay, call me crazy, but I want to make a Topsy Turvy cake for my son's 1st birthday! This will be the first cake I've ever made, besides boxed cakes. I've been looking a lot at instructions and found some pretty good ones on here.
I want to use fondant and I want it to be a three tiered cake. We're having a Mickey Mouse theme, and I've found some good ideas. My main worry is the cake more than anything!
What tools and supplies do I need to order? What cake and frosting works best? Any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated. I plan on doing at least one trial cake, if not more.

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You are a brave sole!!!!! I'm can't help much cause I still haven't tried. I think the best thing..if you want..is to by a DVD from Sharon Zambito. If you go to Global Sugar Arts, you can order it from there. It's 34.99 I believe and have heard AWESOME things about it. It will be my next DVD to get! From what I understand, that will be all you need!

For a topsy turvy cake it's best to use a firm cake, not a light sponge cake and use a thin layer of filling like SMBC. I normally add several thin layers instead of 2 thick ones.
For equipment, well you need cake cardboards for stacking, dowels and of course fondant but nothing special you wouln't use for normal cakes.
I would also buy a smoother, that really helps in getting the fondant nice and smooth around your cake.
If you want to make figures of Mickey Mouse, I would buy some CMC to add to the fondant, that is a lot easier to modelate.

Just give it a try with the cake baking and filling and try a normal cake covered with fondant, if you get that a 3 tier one will go just fine. My second cake was also a 3 tiered one, gave me lots of stress but turned out just fine!!

Muchísima suerte (lots of good luck!!)!!
Lara