Grandma's 80th Birthday Cake

I know you all are probably getting caked-out, but it'll only be another couple months until the wedding AND I do have other things to blog about, I just haven't gotten to it yet! So until then, another cake!

This year seems to be a big one as far as birthdays go for my family.  I did my uncle's 60th birthday cake in March, and my Grandma hit the bit 8-0 in May!

I feel that when making this cake, I took one big step forward, and a small one backwards.  I got together with my friend Megan to get her to teach me to be as awesome as she is.  Seriously though, she does some fantastic cakes and I really needed someone live & in person to help me out.

With her help I managed to cover a cake in fondant without a million puckers at the bottom! Yay!

I was disappointed with how the cake looked overall though because the cake itself was poorly structured, I think in large part because it had thawed before putting the buttercream on it.

I didn't actually have a freak out covering the cake in a million piped dots - which I thought I might! lol

This was my first cake with fresh flowers, and it worked out pretty well.  I was going to use craft wire to stick them into a styrofoam ball like I saw somewhere, but I couldn't find a cheap styrofoam ball.  I ended up using slightly dried out fondant from another cake that I'd done instead.  

Slowly, I'm getting better at this whole thing!