Mermaid, Under the Sea Cake

Cake prep was a little more intense this year. It took up a few days instead of just two. First up... bake the cakes. We went with four pans of cake in different shades of purple and blue. 

then after much deliberation we decided to make the mermaid for the top of the cake out of clay. Mom Tobler was worried that we may not get her to look exactly how we wanted or make her stay that way over night if we used fondant and waiting until the day before the party to make her was risky. We had thought about putting a toy on top but in my opinion that is cheating, if we can make a dump truck and Elmo, then we can make a mermaid. So one afternoon while Gretchen was over we made a mermaid. She was so fun and sculpting is so NOT in my realm of crafting talents. What an art! So glad that Gretchen had taken a pottery class at BYU (even if she did fail it, lol.)

We were rushing so fast (since we had 5 kids four and under at the house time is of the essense) so we totally forgot about the picture part. First we made a rock out of rice krispie treats. Then we made the tail and added a scure through the bum. which is where we attached the torso and head. Then we added the limbs, fins, hair and shells.

 We baked her for 30min and put in her a ball of tin foil so she wouldn't fall down. then Jakob painted a face. 

For the coral we melted some white almond bark and added food coloring to it. Then we made about 100 different shapes out of the different colors. Note: the thicker the better! That way they are less likely to break when adding them to the cake!

Then it was fondant time!

We got our sketch! Originally I was only planning on doing a single layer cake... then I changed my mind. 

So for the top layer I simply cut around the outside of a hot chocolate container to get the size of cake I wanted. 

We did a dirty ice and started adding the scales cut from fondant using a doughnut hole.

The layer are together!

Time to fondant our rock!

The before and after!

And she's done!

E was so excited and kept telling us "That is the beautifulest cake ever!!!" It was SOOOO much fun!! Thank you Mom for all of your help!!! You are amazing!