Does anyone else hate this as much as I do?
I'm making a cake for a baby shower that a friend of mine is helping to throw. (I don't know the mom-to-be.) I don't really make cakes for money, but I'm certainly not adverse to helping a friend and making a few extra bucks if I have the time. 
The problem: She just says "Oh, do whatever you want to do. Isn't that cool? I'm sure people don't normally give you that chance."
Sigh. I understand how she could think this, but the truth is, I don't have time to weed through a ton of cake ideas (as much fun as that is) and putter around trying things. I used to, but that was pre-baby! Now I have a toddler, a full-time job and a DH who works the opposite shift from me, so I NEVER have time to myself unless the kid has gone to bed. (And then I'm beat. 
)
The friend involved is a sweetheart, and I truly know she'll be happy with whatever I create. I would like to make a wonderful cake. There's no real theme to the shower, unfortunately, and the invitation just has pictures of flowers and the words "A baby is a precious flower." So I suppose that's something ...
Can anyone help me jump-start this?
If she knows the sex, then do a cake with fondant flowers on it and flowers on wires for the topper.
If she doesn't know the sex you could do anything with fondant accents; baby feet, circles, stars,diamonds, alphabet and numbers, rattles, teddy bears the possibilities are endless when it's themeless.
One possibly quick and easy direction is to look up her registry online (try Babies R Us and Pottery Barn Kids, those are popular registries, or else of course ask). If she's registered you'll at least get her color scheme or maybe even a design idea e.g. if she's doing the room in a jungle theme, or under-the-sea theme, etc.
I did that for a cake coming up, I saw a diaper caddy in her registry that I'm going to try to replicate and now I know what colors too. If not for that I have no idea how I'd have decided what the heck kind of cake to make.
Other than that, I really like the sleeping-baby-in-a-flower idea Daisy1 posted. 
I just went through this with my aunt. My cousin is expecting, and I asked if I could do the cake, because quite frankly, the store where they were going to get the cake isn't very good. The last time I had it the cake was dry, and the icing was very stiff and had almost no flavor.
So, I asked if they had anything specific in mind. The answer was nope, just do whatever you want. So, I asked if they could email me a picture of the invitation. (they always send invitations to my mom that just say her name and girls, so I didn't have one myself) Anyway, my sister emailed me a photo of the plate instead, so I made the cake resemble the plate and napkins.
I would post a photo, but my camera wasn't working so I don't really have one. The plate was a baby bear in a crib, with his little blankey and teddy bear, and a duck. So, I just made little fondant figures to match those, I cut squares (which were in the background) out of fondant, and put those around the edges of the cake, and I made a gumpaste crib to put on top, and placed the figures inside.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say, is ask for one of the plates or napkins they will be using, and see if you can put aspects of those onto the design of the cake. If they aren't really doing anything special, then I'd go with what's suggested above. See if she's doing the nursery in a certain theme, or use the invitations.
Of course, there's always doing a mommy and baby cake, instead of a baby shower cake. Like the pregnant mommy silhouette cake here http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=518803
I plan on doing this one for my sister-in-law next month (thank you for your help KoryAK), as she's another one that says just do whatever, and she doesn't eat sweets, so she doesn't even really care if she has a cake. I say, you can't have a shower without cake, so I will make one whether she wants it or not.. hehe
There are a ton of mommy cakes on here, so maybe you could get an idea from one of those, if no one throwing the shower will give you an idea.
Just some ideas. I hope my ramblings have helped some.. heh
Good luck!!
Holly
I actually hate that. I much prefer to know that my vision and the person getting the cakes vision is the same (or close)
In this case, I would probably use the invitation.
I love it when someone says that to me because I can relax a little about their expectations. However, like tasteebakes, I do ask for some sort of detail they prefer, like the invitation, the colors, bows, flowers or teddy bears...
This is a shower cake I just did for a friend who said, "Just do whatever". The invitation was flowers, stripes and dots and I tried to match the colors as closely as possible. Maybe it will help with ideas?
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1093363
Thanks, follks. I think they're going to get something with lots of multicolored flowers (as per the invitation) -- just coming up with a focus for that now.
I think a tiered cake is in order, because I like to make them and rarely get to. So maybe this isn't so bad after all.
Two tiers (10, 6), covered with blue fondant, marble some pretty pastels if you think they will think it is too masculine (but the blue is water). Rubber ducky on the top. white fondant "bubbles" randomly placed, painted in super pearl. Maybe a baby blanket or towel hanging down the side.................maybe in pink...then you have pink and blue on the cake, monogram the towel with "B" or the last name of the baby...........?????????
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