I just posted 3 photos of the cake I made for my son's teacher. One is a "full picture", the 2nd is a close-up of the children/faces that I put on it, and the 3rd is the cupcakes that I made for the class to eat.

Please be brutally honest <grin>....'cause right now I have a big head....all the mons and teachers there told me that I ought to start selling cakes, but I don't know that I am at that skill level yet....I'm NOT fishing for compliments....just wondering if you guys think that I am "ready" to try and get customers. Thanks!

Fantastic job! I love the kids faces. How long did it take you to do that?

I think that you are skilled well enough to sell cakes. I was selling cakes before I even knew how to decorate. If I can do it, so can you!

Great job...get to selling! Big head well deserved I saw you used the letter cutters for your CCs. Did you have any trouble with the letters not wanting to come out? I do sometimes and I have to pry them out with a toothpick sometimes ruining them. I dust the cutters but do you have any tips?

No doubt about it, you are ready for business! You really did a good job on these little people, and your cake looks great too.

I'm trying to figure out how to keep my fingernails out of my fondant, and I don't see any fingernail holes in these, so how did you do it? Janice

sure you are..... and the more you do the better you will be..... if parents and teachers said that there some of the consumers that would be buying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are abso lutely ready for customers! You did a fantastic job! I love the kids/faces. How did you do the lettering? Naturally with cutouts, huh? Get ready for the orders to come rolling in !!

okay, yes you are ready to sell your beautiful cakes! i would mention to friends and family that you are selling cakes and for them to call you for their upcoming birthays and special occasion cakes......then when their friends and family see what you can do.....the bucks will start rolling in
great job!
melody

Thanks everyone for your feedback! I was pretty happy with the way that the cake turned out, although I have to wrok on getting the fondant smoother. I think one of the problems is that I tend to put more bc on than you are supposed to....but I do that in case someone doesn't like fondant...than there is still plenty of icing for them after they scrape off the fondant.

to answer a few questions.....

Janice - from years of having long fingernails, I simply got in the habit of never "using them". When I was smoothing the fondant, I used only the palm of my hand, the "pads" of my fingertips and a fondant smoother. My last fondant cake (which was also my first) had PLENTY of finger marks in it...but they were 2 and 4 year old finger marks <grin>

Lisa - I did use those Wilton cutters and I did have a problem with them sticking. But to get them out, I used the smallest tip from the Wilton confectionary tool set and gently nudged them out. It was small enough to get in the cutter, but still round enough to not do that much damage to the letter (although I had a heck of a problem with the "A"s and "O"s stretching as they came out!)

AgentCakeBaker - The faces didn't take long....I did them on Saturday night and let them sit out to dry until I added them to the cake on Monday morning. They were just made out of fondant with a little bit of GumTex added. I had fun making the mouths too (I wanted a bunch of different ones). All the mouths were made using cookie cutters, including many mini-shaped ones (the pumpkin cookie cutters gave a really cute "grimace")

Aha, the fondant smoother...I've got to get one! Keeping fingers out of the icing/fondant is evidently part of the practice process!

Probably too much BC can keep the fondant from smoothing, or at least leave it a little puffy looking!
If you are using MMF, and roll it fairly thin, I'm not sure too many people will scrape it off.

You've given us some good tips and information.
Thanks! Janice

Thanks MindiBrad...I'll try that. I've been using the zero for the O lately and it seemed to work better. I think they should have made the O much thicker. It doesn't fit in well with the rest of the letters.