I made this cake for my daughter's 6th birthday party, which had a tropical theme. I used two boxed cake mixes, one for each layer. I just used classic white store-bought icing. In between the layers is some shredded coconut and icing. I used coconut colored with green food coloring around the top layer to look like grass. I used crushed graham crackers as sand. Those are real shells and plastic flowers. I used a narrow icing spatula to make the stripes on the sides. It was a hit!