Hi there, newbie here!  Our lil man is turning one in a month.  I love cake decorating but definitely an amateur.  I have square, round, and rectangular cake pans.  I even have a checkered cake pan set.  I can't decide how to make his cake to fit the alphabet theme.  I don't want to do anything too difficult, but I would like to challenge myself a little because that's the only want to improve my skills and knowledge.  So far, I haven't made any shaped cakes.  He only has a few letters in his name and it starts with W.

I have attempted to make fondant once and failed miserably, otherwise I've only worked with buttercream frosting.

I've thought about making a big cake that looks like a block, and put a big W on the front and 1 on top.

I've also thought about a square or rectangle cake and make mini cake blocks spelling out his name and a block for 1, OR use my actual wooding blocks to spell out his name and 1.  I really would like all of the cake to be edible.

I've thought about a cake shaped like a W but don't know how to make such a thing.

I planned to make the main cake rainbow color inside, and have chocolate cupcakes on the side.  I'm also going to make alphabet letter cookies for everybody to decorate just for fun.

His birthday is shortly after Christmas, so of course my time is limited with with, Christmas, and everything else.  Lucky for me, I do have an entire week of work off before his party to work on this, but I have to be able to keep the cake fresh in the deep freezer.

Any ideas?  Thanks!

I like the idea of alphabet blocks for an alphabet themed party.

Here's a video about how to make blocks with fondant:

You can carve a number 1 from a rectangular cake fairly easily. Just print out a giant number 1 and use that as a guide for cutting. Or hire a number 1 cake tin.