Originally Posted by mamacc 

I just finished up a busy month with this sculpted mermaid cake. I was looking forward to this cake all month, LOL! It took quite a bit longer than I thought and I ended up staying up all night till 9:00 a.m. the next day when the woman came to pick it up! That was a new record for me! I have to decorate at night b/c of my three kids so I couldn't even get started on the decorating till about 8:00 p.m. The cake was already carved and ready to go and it still took me all night. It didn't help that my baby was teething and kept waking up....

Anyway, I used a carved ball pan for the head, the body is two halves of a round cake cut in half and carved. Then I cut the tail from a sheet cake and stacked it. The arms and fin are fondant. I covered the entire tail with cut out fondant circles that I painted with luster dust after I laid them all on. I'm not sure that my proportions are quite right, but I really didn't have time to mess with it too much so I just had to go with it. I used an extruded rope to form the "water" and then flooded it with leftover cookie icing.(toba's) I just felt it needed that finishing touch and somehow I thought of that at 7 a.m the next day(ha ha), although I wish the color was a tiny bit lighter. Oh well, there's always something you want to change after doing a cake!

Courtney