All flowers are hand made sugarpaste. I actually spent almost 65 hours on the flower work. It was the first time making many of the flowers presented on the cake. and probably half were not "good enough" to meet my expectations. The cake was frosted in buttercream. The boarders are very intricate shell piping that looks like a doily design. The pattern on many of my cakes is done by using paper towels to smooth out. It does take lots of practice and there are times in the past and even now that the frosting is lifted off the cake and I have to start over in that spot! I find the end result often worth the aggravation.