This is exactly what I bow to those of you who do this for money. I could never do it. Too much stress.

Anyway, I'm doing Hannah's cake for her party at 4pm. I stacked and icing them last night. The icing looks a bit off, but since it was going to be the crumb coat, I didn't worry about it.

I made the buttercream recipe from here with just butter, not crisco. I've made it a bunch of times. It's sort of crystalized and has little granules it looks like. I rewhipped to cover the tiers today and it went on really 'holey'. Even with the hot spatula, it still looks pretty bad. It's a good thing I have paw prints and 200 royal bones to cover the mess---assuming they stick! But WHAT happened??

Thanks.

I think that there is too much air in the icing. This happened to me when I 'rewhipped' my buttercream. Not fun.

Darn. I wonder if there is anyway to fix it. I do have to make grass so I need it to work a little....hmmmm

I don't understand what would make it crystalize and have little granules in it. It sounds like you can cover up what you already frosted it with your bones and paw prints. For the grass, if you're using the grass tip, those little granules will clog and cause you heart ache.
Make a small batch for the grass. Do this:
2 cups of confec. sugar
1/2 C crisco
2 tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. vanilla
whip for less than two minutes and add green coloring for the grass.