Such a Lady!

I was watching the t.v. show "Amazing Wedding Cakes" and one of the bakeries featured a cake inspired by the movie "My Fair Lady". I then took their cake to inspire my cake! Inspiration makes the world go 'round, don'tcha know?
Here's the final outcome:



And here's a close-up of the bow:



I'm not exactly thrilled with how this came out, but it was a good practice cake. It was done in a buttercream. I waited for it to crust then I used the Viva paper towel method of smoothing.

The bow took a little while, which was my first obstacle. The black strips are actually separate pieces of gumpaste that were colored black, then applied to the bow. The gumpaste didn't take the black well, so I painted over them. Of course, my shaky hands got the better of me and made a mess all over the pretty white of the bow, but I figured out how to clean it up (for the most part).

The string work was also good practice. For the most part it went well, of course I had some breakage, but that's common. One of my biggest problems was that it didn't line up well in the back. I tried using the Garland Marker by Wilton, but those lines didn't match up in the back, so I winged it and was stuck with the Marker holes. Oh, well. Then my royal icing didn't take the black like the gumpaste. So, I painted over those strings, but we all know how well that works for me!

The gumpaste balls on the bottom were airbrushed with a pearl luster dust so they gave off the look of actual pearls.

If you don't look too close at it, it's a pretty good cake for a newbie! But, of course, I do look closely at it, and I'm not too impressed, but I'm getting there!

Lessons Learned:
1) Line up garland marks before actually marking on the cake.
2) Learn how to color gumpaste and icing black and/or get a less shaky hand!

Thanks for reading!