Can anyone provide any tips or links to making a brief case or suit case cake with a lid thats propped open? Is the lid foam and how do you get it to stay propped up?

You could do foam, you could do gingerbread. I think I would make it so that the lid slides into a crevice so that it would stand straight up anyway no matter what.

Like the lid amde of foamcore or gingerbread would be longer than the eye can see--it would slip into a slot --also disguised from vision--like have the base built up underneath the board with foam so this all sets down into the base and just appears as a lid at eye level when you get it decorated.

So instead of approaching it as if you are making a briefcase--no no no--you are building a foam stand that can then be disguised as a briefcase.

So where you wanna focus is making something out of foam and cardboard and foamcore that will stand up all on it's own--then cover it with fondant and whatever to make the object (the briefcase)

You don't wanna make this out of whatever then figure out how to make it stand--see what I mean.

I got a drawing coming up...

So I would build this--and decorate it to look like a briefcase.