I love the effect that broaches has on cakes. Are these specific broaches made for cakes or are they normal broaches. If they are the normal ones which you get, do you remove the pin at the back before you use it? Also, how do you stick it on the cake? Does anybody know of any sites that do really nice broaches?
I use old broaches and earings from my mom and grandmother. I also go to nearly new stores and search for interesting ones as well. Lately I ask if the bride has her own family favourite that they would like to place on their cake.
I do not attach it to the cake but rather stick it to the real ribbon that goes on the cake.
I like bellefashions.com myself for less expensive brooches. You need to click on brooches and then look through all of them since there are so many different kinds there. But they do have some nice ones that look like they would be great on a cake.
As for attaching them. I would pin them to the ribbon on the cake. If you are not using a ribbon then a small glob of fondant should be pushed into the back of the brooch and then attached to the cake.
I have done this once for a couple who ordered an anniversary cake from me and wanted me to use the pin her mom wore at their wedding. Fondant cake so what I ended up doing was making a fondant circle the same size as the pin then putting a glob of buttercream on the back of the pin and laying it on the fondant round then attaching the round to the cake when the buttercream had dried the pin to the round. Worked beautifully!
Here is a cake I did last month - the pin was not long enough to go through the fondant bow, (I tried several times, and had to remake that center each time 
) I ended up placing it below the knot in the bow where it would stay in the cake. The bride still loved it, it was her Grandmothers brooch, the table was trimmed with her Grandmothers necklaces...it was really beautiful the way it looked.
This has no sentimental value, but there is also a silicone cameo mold that I got @ Global Sugar Art. I've used it with both fondant and gumpaste. The cameos turn out quite nicely, and are super easy to make. Just another feature you could add on cakes if you don't have the actual jewelry.
I like that idea too - I made my own for another cake so the entire thing was completely edible.
You can find brooches at Michaels in the beading section also.
I found out later a fix for the one I did would have been to tape a toothpic to the too short pin to get it to be able to go through the knot of the bow. I wasn't able to think of that at the time when it would have been helpful though. 
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