I have a birthday cake for two men next week. It's going to be an 8in round. They want the words "Happy Birthday" and the two names on the cake. The colors they want are red, white and blue - due the sports team they love (but don't want sports incorporated). Buttercream, but I can throw fondant accents on there.
Any ideas?! Anything I come up with looks to 4th of Julyish!
Well I have no ideas, but I feel your pain..I just had the happen to me for snowflake cookies and wasn't happy. Cakes for men are hard enough with throwing in a curve ball. Guess I'd just do a white cake with blue and red fonasnt dots of varying sizes. besides, after that writing, there won't be much room left
Just browsed your cake photos quickly, can you do someting similar to this http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1276529
White background with blue and red squares 
I'd guess the writing would fill the top.
Finish off the cake board with either red/white/blue squares or full circles around the cake
you could decorate with white and blue dipped chocolate strawberries (white candy melts tinted) also take a look at the inside of this cake...it would be awesome in red white and blue....scroll to the bottom of the page
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://danicasdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/IMG_0518.jpg&imgrefurl=http://danicasdaily.com/a-rainbow-birthday-cake-4-the-husband/&usg=__JmEBUZDhXhVNaCQdukSbcutCoDI=&h=480&w=640&sz=58&hl=en&start=37&um=1&tbnid=tzNg6byujJLm5M:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dred%2Bwhite%2Bblue%2Bbirthday%2Bcake%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1
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