Well I have decided to learn how to decorate cakes. For Christmas I got books, and a DVD. I baked and decorated my first cake over the weekend. Everybody says it turned out good for my first cake. And it taste really good!! 
I have never had classes. I'm trying to teach myself. So now I have some questions.
1. When you are mixing the icing up, is it suppose to be dry? I used
1 cup Crisco, 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix well then add in 4 cups powdered sugar. Add 3 to 7 tablespoons water.
I was scared I was going to tear my mixer up. I know now I added to much water. Somebody told me, by mixing it, it will add air and become fluffy but it was so hard to get mixed up. Am I doing it right?
2. Is the icing suppose to be hard to squeeze out of the bag? I thought it was to hard so I added more water. Somebody said it takes a good bit of pressure and it's hard on your hands. Is that right?
3. How do you keep the cake board clean when icing the cake?
I need lots of practice still but I'm trying to learn. I need to add more icing to my cakes. I kinda got it smooth so I left it alone but it wasn't enough icing. Was scared to add more in fear of messing it up.
Thanks for reading and any tips, tricks, suggestions, etc. are welcome! Great site by the way!!!!!!
I'm not sure icing recipe you're using, but I've always used this one and it works well for me:
2 cups of Crisco shortening
2 lbs of confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
1 teaspoon clear butter extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
approximately 6-8 tablespoons of water
If you're having problems getting the icing out of the bag, either it's too thick or you have too much in your bag. Never fill your bag over halfway because it's too hard to control and squeeze if overfilled.
As far as keeping the cakeboard clean, I sometimes put a board under my cakes that's the exact same size as the cake itself... then I icing that, then put on small dot of royal icing onto my larger cake board and set the cake on top of that so it will stay in place.
Good luck and ask questions if you're not certain of how to do something .. we all here at CC will be glad to try and answer your questions 
yep, good ol' fashioned buttercream will do that to a mixer. You can mix it stiff and use that for piped flowers, leaves and things that you want to hold their shape. Thin the icing down a little bit more for borders and writing and such, thin it down a little more for icing the cake (that way you don't pull the frosting off and pull crumbs off with it). So basically, there are no hard, fast rules about decorating, it's what works best for you and the techniques you have learned. Personally, about the "not enough frosting" thing. If the cake is covered and no crumbs or cake is showing through, it's ok. Just have to find that happy medium that you and your customers like. I, myself, don't like my a little cake with my frosting, and then there are others who like just that.
The only thing that will help you get better is to keep on keepin on, Experiment, experiment, experiment. And most important thing of all.........HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!
I follow the same recipe as you do. When you mix you add 1 cup crisco/ 1 teaspoon vanilla/ 2 tablespoons water mix well. Slowly add in the 1lb of sugar mixing while adding slowly. This gives you a stiff consistency. To make a medium for borders add 1 tablespoon water (total of 3 tbsp) and mix. To ice the cake use thin consistency add 2 tablespoons to original recipe (4 tbsps total).
Hope That Helps!!
To answer the no enough frosting thing, I used to have this problem and then I learned about crumb coating. The layer of frosting between the cake and the final layer of thicker frosting. It made a big difference. Plus, there are no crumbs in the outer layer of frosting
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