My son is really into knights and castles, so for his birthday I made a castle cake like so many I've seen here. I even went so far as to make a fondant knight to stand guard by the draw bridge.

Anyway, it took HOURS to apply all those stones. I'm just a hobbiest, but now I really understand why people charge what they do. My DH rolled the stones and I put them on and it still took nearly 2 1/2 hours. Kudos to all of you do this for a living and stand firm in charging what you do.

I have not been able to do one so thumbs up to you,the cake was very nice

The detail of the stones turned out great on your cake, I can only imagine how much your son must have loved it.

I made a gingerbread house this year for a event at my culinary school... and decided to make little individual gingerbread bricks lol. I made a sheet of gingerbread and cut them with a pizza wheel and then baked them off. When they came out though they were too thick and not exactly the same dimensions so I ended up filing down each brick individually. My pastry chef thought I was nuts, but I thought it looked so cute when I was done lol.

Sometimes the most time consuming detail is what really makes the cake (or gingerbread house).

I hear ya. I did a cake with fondant balls for the bottom border. Thank goodness I could get my daughters to help me roll them out. Your cake is great!!!

The cake is really nice. I love the overall look.