I just finished my very first Topsy-Turvy cake this weekend and at several points I was ready to drop kick the whole mess out the back door!! lol Luckily it turned out ok, but I know I can do so much better.

My cake was a Jungle theme for my niece's 4th b-day.
1st mistake - hand painting my jungle animals rather than coloring the fondants. But I was afraid that mixing the fondant colors would lead me to a lot of waste, especially since I make my own still.

2nd and 3rd mistakes - I carved my cakes fine for the Topsy-Turvy look and then it went downhill from there. I chose the wrong rounds for the look I wanted. They needed to be a little bit more of a space between the layers. Then my crumb coat was too soft or something because when we covered the top two layers, it was mushy under the fondant, making it hard to get the fondant in place. Grr.

4th mistake - I sat the third layer forgetting to put in the dowels to support it!! My third layer started to immediately crush my 2nd layer. Had to pull it back off messing up my fondant and insert the dowels that I should have added the first time!! What a mess. That's the point that I wanted to drop kick the cake.
From there it was all about getting it done and patching and covering my messes. lol
I learned a lot from making this cake and made stupid mistakes that I will more careful with next time. And luckily it turned out ok. By the end I figured I really just needed to give my nice her jungle cake and she wouldn't see the mess I made out of it, and fortunately that's exactly what happened! She couldn't wait to get into her cake!!

sounds like you had a weekend like mine! But oh well we will learn!