I wanted to try a few techniques on a wedding cake that my mother's friend may want me to make for her. She had an Wilton wedding book, I think it was from the 80's, and I made a copy of the picture and of the instructions and I practiced a few today.

I wasn't going to do the drop strings but then decided I would. I didn't add corn syrup to the frosting so it's not what I know I can actually do.

This was the first time doing the e-motions. And extending the shell to go over the border and down the side wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Overall I do think that with the time(I was a bit rushed today) and patience that I could actually do her cake for her.

Thanks for looking and listening to me think outloud.

Did you try using Wilton's garland marker to help you with the string work? It gives you uniformly spaced markings to help.

I agree with Kae133, those garlands are too difficult to free-hand! The Garland marker will make all the difference!

When I took my classes my teacher told me that you can't use the garland marker for drop strings. That it would be difficult to get the string to land directly on the holes the marker put. Do you both use the marker for this?

I will be making another practice cake to give to her and her family to try so I'll try it out on that cake. I also made the pink way to dark. It almost looks like hot pink. LOL! I'll subdue it for the next one.

Thanks for your help.

For the drop strings, you'd mark your start and finish points so you'd at least have a target to line up with. You could do it with the market though. Once you get the hand of handling the string, you can make it go exactly where you want it!

As for the hot pink: most colors dry AT LEAST 2 shades darker that they start off being. So always start off lighter. If you want to check it, leave a spoonful out in the air, cover up the rest while you wait, and give it half an hour to crust. If it's still too light, you can add another little bit!

Thanks for all your advice! This time I didn't add quite so much coloring so its not HOT anymore.

Here is a sample that I sent to my mom's friend. A week ago she gave my mom money for it, so it looks like its a go. She has only seen pictures of my other work. I have the money sitting off to the side until the wedding has come and gone, "just in case." Knock on wood.

I'm still working on getting those darn air bubbles out of my frosting. I was able to get the sides smooth(enough for me) but the top not so much. I use the upside down icing technique so it level just air bubbly. Thanks for all your support and advice.

May I suggest that it's not even necessary to bake and ice a cake to practice stringwork, borders, etc. Just use a cake dome, or upside down cake pan, or coffee can, turntable, whatever and pipe onto it. You can mark the divisions with tape or a dry erase marker. Scrape the icing off and reuse it or trash it. then practice it several times. Stringwork can take some work.