This is my first cake for an actual customer. I have a half sheet i filled with blueberry pie filling. I made a wall around the edge first, let it crust, added my filling everything was fine. I tried to put the second layer on top, it started to crack, and then when it was on my filling started oozing out of two sides. I'm trying to stop it with more icing. It has stopped, its just a big mess. Please tell me how i can save this cake. I also have to sit a 3d train on top of it. I am in tears right now, i don't know what to do, and i'm seriously considering giving up the whole cake decorating thing. 
Don't give up!
How thick did you make the filling layer? Also, what cracked - the icing dam or the top layer?
One thing cake decorating has taught me is patience. It's amazing what you can cover up, re-do or hide on a cake! Hopefully I don't have any major disasters!
Good Luck!
Debbie
You may have too much filling. Take some of the filling out and make sure that you don't have more filling in the middle than you do on the outsides. Also make sure that the inside of the cake that is touching the filling is fairly flat. I usually do a piping of icing around the edge of the cake and then I do another piping of icing directly on top of the first one so I have a 2-layer wall.
In the future, you may want to try using the cake mix extender recipe on the site or another recipe that makes a firmer cake. Your cake for this project may not be firm enough.
Hope this helps and good luck. Let us know how it turns out.
Cindy
The top layer of my cake cracked. I did use the cake extender recipe, I made a 2 layer wall around the outside of the filling and my bottome layer that the filling is sitting on is very flat. does anyone have any tips on how to fix this or should i just start over?
get the top layer off and take out some of your filling. after you replace the top layer (or you can make it your bottom layer) you can "fix" the crack with icing. It will work out!
Debbie
also - what type of icing were you using? maybe it wasn't heavy enough to hold in the filing?
Deb
I didn't know this until someone here told me that you have to use STIFF buttercream for the dam. I used to use the same I frosted with till I learned this. Now I do it that way all the time and it works great. Add some more sugar to you icing to make it thicker for your frosing dam.
Thanks for the tips. I tried to take off the top layer and it was stuck to the filling so no matter what i tried it just all broke apart. I am now starting over from scratch and making my own filling, really thick, instead of using the canned stuff. I will definately use a stiffer bc for my filling walls. Thanks again, wish me luck, i should be up all night decorating by the time i have everything baked and made. 
If the top cake layer cracked, there is a good chance that something was not level and caused the crack. I don't use stiff icing to make a dam, I just use whatever consistency I am using to ice my cake with..usually it is thin. Good luck to you and let us know how it turns out!
The top layer started cracking as i was putting it on and yes, i did put a thin layer of bc on the bottom layer before i made my wall. Anyway, I started completely over. I made my own filling, very thick. It all went together beautifully. The finished product came out really cute, I'm very happy with it. I am delivering it in a couple of hours, I'll find out then how the customer likes it. I wish i could post a pic, but i still don't have a dig cam and my scanner is now outdated for the new computer i just got. I can't win lately, huh? Thanks again for everyone's help!!! 
It is good to know that your second cake turned out so well! Wish we could see it!
It probably doesn't help you much right now, jg556a, but just reading about your experience will help a lot of us know what to do/not to do when we have an opporunity to make a cake like this, so thanks to everyone for all the information. Janice
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