Gardener's Birthday Cake

I am bone tired right now, but I'm pushing through it to get my blog up to date!  This cake was 12" round on bottom and 8" round on top.  I was advised by a friend to start giving a size reference for my cakes, such as a picture of a coke can or something so you can tell how big they are, so I'll be doing that from now on.  For these next two cakes, no dice.  Sorry!  The dimensions of this cake were 15" cake board, 12" cake round that was 4" high, then the 8" round on top that was 4" high, then 2" of decorations, so all in all the cake was 10" high.  It was pretty heavy.  There were almost 5 pounds of frosting on this sucker!
  The story for this cake is there is a woman who is turning 55 today and she has NEVER had a birthday party!  Can you imagine?  So her daughter sought my services to make a beautiful cake for her.  We all settled on this design and I got to it.

  The pots and tools are made out of gumpaste and the figure is fondant.  I used marshmallow creme for the fondant instead of melting mini marshmallows, and I have to say I'm not too pleased with how it turned out.  It was difficult to shape correctly.  The figure came out fine, but it was hard to get that way.  For the silver, I used lemon juice and silver edible shimmer dust, and painted it on with a food safe brush.
  There are a LOT of details on this cake.  I spent about 8 and a half hours making the decorations and putting the cake together.
  I used the Wilton cake board foil for the first time, and I have to say I really liked it.  I like the fondant look around the edges as well (and it's very customizable) but it's very time consuming.
  I used ground up chocolate chips for the dirt.  It was fun!  I used my Magic Bullet to grind them up and a silver baby spoon as my "shovel" to place the dirt where I wanted it.  The moss is just buttercream applied with the grass tip.  I forget the number.

  I really love this butterfly.  It was painstaking to make (it's made out of gumpaste) but I love it anyway.  I had about 4 heart attacks during the making of this butterfly.  Once my kiddo grabbed it off the shelf and started flying it around the room, once I kicked the tray it was drying on...the list goes on.  But it survived and so did I.  Did I mention I love it?
  Someday I will post on here about the frosting plugs I've been using.  They have saved me SO much time.  What you do is, basically, get a rectangle of plastic wrap, lay it flat.  Put a big old spatula full of frosting near the right edge and roll it up and shape it into a cone shape.  Then you roll it all the way up so you have a bullet of frosting.  When you want to use it, you cut the plastic wrap near the small cone end and put it in a disposable decorator's bag with a tip attached.  It makes the cleaning SO quick and if you want to switch colors, it's REALLY fast.  SO useful.  There's a video on SeriousCakes on YouTube if you're interested.
  Well, not much else to tell.  I set all the decor together on the beautifully frosted cake, said voila, took some pictures, and delivered it.  FUN stuff!  See you later!