Special Occasion = Special Cake!

My sister Michele celebrated her 50th birthday this weekend!
(Here's Michele with proud parents, Mom and Dad)

Teresa and Mary Scott managed to plan a terrific surprise party. The "decoy" plan was for the girls to get our toe nails painted. The real plan was to surprise Michele back at her house when we were through! And it worked. She was surprised!

Certainly, such a momentous occasion deserves a special cake. Inspired by Bakerella's recent Valentine's Day post, I decided to make something really over the top. Well, over the top for me anyway.

I printed some scrapbook papers on card stock from Scrapbook Flair and Shabby Princess.
Took these to Harris Teeter to be reprinted on Frosting Sheets with food color. (Ok, this is the one time I prefer Wal-mart but their printer was broken. Somehow Harris Teeter always resizes my pages to be slightly smaller. You will see why this matters in a minute.)
Above is the paisley frosting paper, now cut into strips and adhered to fondant with a little Crisco. A little. Who wants to taste Crisco? Just a little.

Once the paper was cut and added to the fondant, I shaped the strips in to this lovely bows. The online directions say to hang these pieces over a dowel stick. But they stood just fine like this. These dried overnight.

The next day, party day, cut the ends of the ribbons because they were too long and bulky to make a nice bow.

I don't have pictures of the next step because got nervous. Once you bake, cool and ice the cake, you have to attach the rest of the frosting sheets, using frosting this time. Cut the remaining sheets into strips to cover the entire rest of the cake. I wanted to make a "Vera Bradley" like present cake. (You can just see how the paper was a tiny bit small to cover the top of the cake. I thought that might happen, so got an extra sheet of that print.)

And tah-dah! A very special cake for a very special occasion!

Happy 50th Birthday Michele!