My cake looks terrible! Any ideas on how I can make it look better? I tried smoothing it with wax paper but it still looks all lumpy. Any ideas on how I can decorate it to take away from the lumpy frosting?

Can you post a pic of the cake so that we have a better idea about your problem?

Here's a pic.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i22/tanya4285/IMG00400.jpg

Is it airbrushed?

Are the lumps in your icing? or big cake crumbs? How much time do you have to fix it?

You could unstack it, put each tier in the refrigerator for a little while, make some new smooth icing and add another layer of a crusting icing. After you have applied the new layer of icing, let it crust up and smooth it out using parchment paper, Viva paper towels or a foam roller (Melvira method).

Hope that helps

Looks pretty rough. Can you cover it with fondant or wide ribbon to at least cover the cake that shows through the top tier?

I have a couple of hours to fix it. It's not airbrushed, and I sifted the sugar when I made the frosting. I think I mixed it too much and it made air bubbles and then I tried to fix it by smoothing it and it made it worse. There aren't any kind of crumbs or chunks in it. I don't know why it came out this way.

It looks like your frosting was too thin. I would chill the cake and make a new batch of thicker butter cream. Use the hot spatula method to smooth it. Good luck.

I would disassemble the tiers and toss it right in the fridge to firm up what you have for an hour or two. Then I'd whip up a fresh batch of buttercream and put a fresh coat over what's already on there, as ptayner suggests.

Another way to go would be, depending on how you will decorate this, would be to do what I call, "embrace the ugly" and make it work for you. In other words, go rustic. Add some more buttercream to get a thicker coat and work it with a spatula to get a rough, rustic look all over. If the decorations you add are of a professional quality, they'll assume that the frosting finish is also of a professional quality, and what you intended it to be.

Of course, this also depends if this was for a client you had specific design agreement with.

(and the reason I asked about airbrushing is it looks a little shimmery in the pic. That may just be the lighting. But if it's not some kind of added shimmer, my guess would be that your buttercream looks a little wet. maybe too thin or too warm?

I agree that bc is just way to thin. Chill it to firm up as everyone else suggested,make new thicker bc and have another go at it.