Ok my best friend whom was married 10 years ago next week, has asked me to recreate her top tier only of her wedding cake. When they got married I had no idea about cakes back then and the bakery didn't give her anything but a paper box to put it in no instructions no nothin... so a year later for their 1st anniversary she took it out and it was disgusting lol...
Anyway it's not that GREAT of a picture as the professional photographs were never given to her 
but I've enlarged it as well. I need to know what's the best way to do the swoops around the sides of the cake??? I'm doing an 8" round 2 layer with buttercream filling and buttercream icing, one layer yellow and one layer chocolate cake. I have to call the bakery lady tomorrow and see if she can make the roses for me before it's due next week so hopefully she can because I just can't lol...
Anyway her colors were white, black and peach... the roses are white with the petal tips being peach... I can see that much in the picture I blew up and printed, the icing is white and the swoops are white w/black lines on top.... what would be the EASIEST!!!!!!! way to do this?????? and which tip should I use?? I've NEVER even practiced this type of swoop before so I don't know where to start... Thanks in advance!
Becky
It is very hard to see but perhaps they used a #104 using a zig-zag (up & down) motion as they were following a swag. Maybe they striped the bag? or went over it with a writer?? That's my best guess...Good Luck!!
Will I need to buy the dividing kit thingie that makes the little indent on the icing to follow to make sure the swags are right?????
edited to say OMG I just realized this is my 1000th post! OMG I think that means I'm truely addicted lmao or at least now it shows lol
I think that depends on how steady your hand is. I have done swags without them on some small cakes but with the larger ones it really is helpful just to make sure you get your spacing right. They are very cheap too...
Thank you for your quick reply 
Also I love your cakes! Especially the chocolate lover's dream cake that won the Hershey contest... it's beautiful and looks delicious!!!!
Anyway I have the divider sheet that you sit the cake on.... it came with Course kit #3 but the garland maker pressie thingie didn't come with it lol... so I'm going to attempt to find my course kits (they're packed away until gas prices go down enough that I can afford to travel over an hour each way to the classes lol) and see if that divider sheet will help me mark... or if I can understand how to use it lol
Anyone else have any ideas on the easiest way to make the swags white with black on top??? I've never striped the bag before and I'm scared lol
No one can help me with this???? I've never made the ruffles before and I've never striped the bag before.... can anyone give me some tips on this??? This cake is a paid cake and is very very important to me. When they got married 10 years ago I had just met them a few months prior and they dropped the brides maid (hubby's ex wife) just so me and hubby could attend 
so they are very special people to us and this is a surprise for him and she didn't bat an eye at the price of $30.~ so I need to make it perfect!!!! Any help is much appreciated!
ok Becky, here goes...
Place a 104 tip in a parchment bag using a coupler.
Take a brush and paint a stipe of black gel coloring from the coupler, up the bag lining up with the wide end of the 104.
Fill the bag with white icing, medium consistency.
Prime the bag by squeezing out enough icing so you see the two tone icing coming out.
Now for the cake. Divide the top of the cake using your dividing wheel. Using stiff icing with a #3 tip to drop your loops. These will serve as your markings for your ruffled swag. Or you can buy Wilton's garland marker to make the sides.
Once your cake is marked, you are ready to start.
Place the wide end of the 104 against the cake. The tapered end is facing down and about a 1/4" off the surface of the cake(pinky tip's width).
Pipe the ruffle: While squeezing the icing, move the tip up and down. Continue moving the tip up and down as you follow the curve of the marked garland.
If you have questions or need further information, feel free to PM me. If you want to talk, leave me a number and I will call you.
Happy Baking!
Junebug you are the greatest! I've never had anyone offer to call me long distance at that lol to help me thru something! Thanks so much. If I run into a problem I will deffinatly drop you a private line lol. The cake isn't due until Wednesday evening (anny is thrusday and he works night shift so she wants it for that morning) so I'll have to practice after I get done my cake that's due on saturday lol. Thanks so much!!!! And I'm sure I'll be in touch 
lol
Well for all those who helped me with this.... here is the finished product! Delivered today to my nephews party and he LOVED it! He couldn't stop smiling and said it was wonderful! My mother who has always been a major downer... even said it looked great!
I ended up doing a 11x15" sheet cake, 2 layers 1/2 yellow and 1/2 chocolate each layer, w/regular butter cream icing filling, buttercream on top, chocolate buttercream dyed black on the sides, a frozen buttercream transfer on top, I also took large marshmallows and painted them with a water and Americolor Black mixture and let them dry, connected with toothpicks and inserted just before leaving for the party, wrapped red thread around them for the ropes. Added the wrestlers at the party because they wouldn't stay still lol. We stood them up, they wouldn't stay so we laid them down lol with foot prints behind them lmao.
I want to thank everyone that helped and I must say I got so mad at my mother that I wasn't going to go to the trouble of the MMF and candy melts as I planned at first and time wasn't on my side and we had so many issues with this cake.... The first cake I made ended up being so small/thin that I HAD to do a 2nd layer, (2 more cake mixes), the second layer cooled too much before I had a chance to smoosh it level and I ended up breaking the cake so badly that it fell apart when placed on top of the other layer. I patched it up and held it together with toothpicks while it slept in the freezer all night lol... This morning it stayed put long enough for me to crumb coat and ice without any issues. The cake even held up to the 20 mile trip to the party, and the high heats of about 90* and didn't cause me issues until we got home lol. I brought home half the cake as she didn't want the leftovers, and when I opened the box to cover with cling wrap the cake had just given out and fallen with the weight of the icing lol but I just smooshed it back on and said to heck with it. Anyway here are the pics. Thanks again for all yalls help!!!!
Well then I put that on the wrong thread didn't I lmao.... Ooops! Well I went back tonight looking for this thread again so I could refer to it as I do the cake tomorrow morning and I find that I posted my nephews cake here by mistake lmfao... Sorry everyone that was watching this topic lol.
Junebug I may need ya tomorrow hun 
I suggest following the directions for the ruffled swag in the Course 3 book, if you have it. If not, pm me and I'll email them to you.
Basically, it's a ruffled swag (tip 103 or 104 wiggled back and forth in an arc with narrow end down) then a zigzag (16) along the top edge of the ruffle then a swagged string (tip 3) on top of that. Do steps 1 & 2 in white, step 3 in black.
Thanks Ali I really appreciate your help as well
I just took out my course kits (purchased both kits and books off ebay last year and haven't taken the courses yet lol) and noticed the fancy dancy tip they include in course 3 that does a combo ruffle with a zigzaged top edge already all in one step. I think I'll try that out on my practice board set before I attempt it on the cake and I'll follow your advice on the drop string of black ontop because I tried the striping the bag technique tonight and it worked alright it's just my icing was way too soft due to the 90* temps in my kitchen lol (small window ac unit in living room where I decorate though ). I'm hoping to make this cake as close to identical as I can get. I ordered the roses last week on friday and she had them ready monday for me, but I asked her for white roses with pale peach tips... she gave me white roses with pink tips.... so I'm guessing I needed to tell her more orangish peach then pinkish peach lol... Oh well I'm sure they will love them anyway lol
Thanks again for all yalls help and I really appreciate it. I'm trying to learn as much as I can from you guys here at CC because I just can't afford the courses right now with gas prices being as high as they are on top of the class fees I'd be paying roughly $75.~ per class... so I just can't do that right now lol.
Okie dokie gang... I'm not happy with the outcome but I hope they are. For some god awful reason hubby didn't tell me we were out of butter so he just used sticks of margarine to make the icing... it came out yellowish instead of white 
I didn't really notice just HOW yellow it was until I placed the roses on top... white roses on yellow icing Oh well I hope she likes it. I didn't practice because hubby says I'm better under pressure and doing it without practicing so if you check my photos you'll see the completed cakes.
I made an 8" 2 layer w/peach roses for the couple, and used the left over batter from those two (yellow and chocolate layers) to make a 6" identical for the kids so they wouldn't touch the parents cake lol (they LOVE my cakes lmao) but since I only ordered 4 peach roses for the couples cake I used white roses on the kids cakes.
I want to thank everyone for ALL of thier help!!! I did my best and it was all new to me... I've never had to do anything wedding related lol and I've never done ruffles before and I've never done drop swags/strings before so with my shakey hands I did my best lol.
Oh My - I think you did a great job! Lovely piping! I like the combination of the white and ivory, a new trend I think! Awesome!
Thanks... it wasn't supposed to be ivory lol it was supposed to be white but.... oh well she loved them both!!! Due to heat problems my ruffles kept falling off on the way there so I had some touchin up to do on site but she was very pleased said it looked better then her original cake lol also said it would be beautiful as a tiered wedding cake and maybe for their 50th if she doesn't kill him first she'll have me do the whole cake then lol IF I'm still doing this in 40 years lmfao
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