Okay, so here is the thing:
Initially, I decided I was going to make my son's first birthday cake myself because I thought it would be cheaper. Well, it's not. But I'm like a dog with a bone now and I am hell-bent on making this cake.

I found a cake on the internet that I LOVE and I am going to tweak it to suit my needs. Problem is, I've never made a cake before (well, except for the ones out of the box). A friend of mine took a cake decorating class and she has all the tools I need to make it. She's going to help me. The cake I have looks relatively easy to make - no fondant or anything too complicated. It's just some of the "tools" that I'm not sure about.

So, it's a dinosaur themed cake. It's going to be a slab cake with dinosaurs on the top. I'm okay with all this. It's going to have little bone candies scattered around the side of the cake, and at the bottom, like a rim around the cake, will be teddy bear crackers (crushed) and jelly beans that look like dinosaur eggs. The icing is just going to be regular green icing.

Here are my questions:

I bought butter cream icing mix from michaels - is that sufficient for icing the cake? I realized as I was doing research that people seem to only use butter cream for the in between layers. Can I ice a cake with butter cream icing, or is there an icing that is easier to use and looks better?

Second - how do I stick the crackers and the eggs? Is there a glue I can use? I found this sugar glue - just sugar and water...does that work? How do I stick the bones to the icing? Will the icing just accept it, or do I need to use the glue?

Thanks in advance for you help!

Absolutely you can ice a cake in buttercream. Some of the most beautiful cakes are iced in buttercream. You may have to thin it out a bit so it's not so stiff and easier to spread onto the cake. You can use milk or water for that. A couple of teaspoons at a time.

The bone candies and jelly beans can be just put right onto the icing. If the icing is spread thick enough onto the cake you won't have any problem with it holding.

Are you sprinkling the crushed crackers on top of the cake to resemble dirt? The crackers should also stick to the icing with just a pat of your hand.

no, the cracker crumbs are going to be around the bottom, but like not on the cake, you know what I mean? like a shirt almost....

So on the cake board then? I would lay down a thin layer of some piping gel, which is clear, and the crumbs will stick to that.

If you don't want to invest in piping gel, you can use buttercream in a very thin layer, but make sure you have enough crumbs to cover it.

amazing! thank you so much!