A friend of mine has requested a hobnail milk glass-inspired white cake for her wedding next month - and she wants fondant. She just sent me her inspiration photo, and I am at a loss for words:
http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/uturnpix/uturnpix0606/uturnpix060600024/436488-white-mums-in-a-hobnail-milk-glass-vase.jpg

How on earth does one create such a surface on a cake with fondant?

When she brought up the idea I had imagined piping individual dots onto the cake, after covering it with a sheet of fondant, but the smoothness of each bump couldn't be created with piping frosting - could it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for reading!

you could try a technique I saw on one of the cake shows. put modeling chocolate bumps on the bc and then cover with fondant

If I were asked to do this design... I would make many fondant balls (the size of the hob nail bumps) and lay them onto the buttercreamed, crumb coated cake at the correct intervals and lay a sheet of fondant over them, smooth the area around each little bump to create the design. This is all theory of course...but that is the way I would go about doing it.

I was thinking the same thing. Either putting balls of fondant or chocolate on the buttercream and then covering it in a final layer of fondant.

Wow, the modeling chocolate idea is fantastic! I'm going to give this a try on Sunday. Thank you all so much for the help, I can't wait to give that a shot. I'll be back for more advice and post photos after I'm done. Thanks again!