ok i am self tought decorator. I look at all the cakes here and they are so awesome. anyway I am wondering if anyone can telll me about some books or videos that give you profesinal tips and tricks to the trade.

check out ebay.com. your old wilton books, volume one, volume two, and volume three tubes are the best. wilton also has a book, wilton the uses of the most popular decorating tips that lists the tips and what you can do with them and how to use them. i have found those to be the best books for me also teaching myself. practice is the most important but the sky is the limit. the first mentioned books has tips and uses, plus many recipes and methods for cake decorating. my books range from 1960 to 1980 and they have the most info, pics, and different methods of cake decorating and these are my favorite. if you can only find one, get the wilton volume three tubes. all the volume books are hardback and full of info and ideas. these are my favorite and i think they will help you more than any books, i know they have helped me the most. have great fun and post pics of your cakes. welcome to the club and happy cake decorating.

Sharon Zambito (sugarshack) has AWESOME DVD's that are so wonderful!! They take you through step by step on how to decorate with BC, stack, stencil, etc. She has several of them. Here is her website
http://www.sugaredproductions.com/Sugar_Ed_Productions.html
HTH

Oh, also, there are sever youtube videos out there. Another person that is great is Edna De la Cruz. Her website is www.designmeacake.com and you can find the videos by just doing a search on youtube such as "how to videos for fondant" or something to that effect.
Good luck

cakegenie.com has the best videos. you can get three cds starting from getting started to special occasion cake decorating. lots of different methods, all tips shown decorating onto the cake in front of you, plus quite a few different cake ideas. all are explained while decorating in front of you just like you are there. you can get these three videos for around $36 total and they are really worth the money. i use them all the time and they show the easiest, fastest, and most simple way to decorate your cakes while you are watching the work being done while explaining each step as it is done. these are the cheapest and best videos as far as i am concerned and have some methods not explained in other videos or books. be sure to check these out. one video is getting started, one video is tips and how to use them, one video is cake decorating while watching with explanation of step plus ideas for lots of cakes to decorate.