Sketches with Paint

So I thought I'd share a little bit about my process of coming up with a design for a cake. I generally just use the "Paint" program on my computer to come up with a few rough ideas of designs. This next cake I'm working on is actually for my friend Kelly's doll club. It's the 20th anniversary of the club. And it's acually her cake we're doing...I'm just helping her out on whatever she needs. :)

Originally we had planned to do a "mad hatter" style cake, but due to time constraints we decided just to go with a standard 3 tier cake, but with the same type of designs on it.... So you've never heard of a mad hatter cake?? Well basically its constructed to look like the cake tiers are all falling apart. Each layer is slanted at an angle to give it that effect. Below are some of my original sketches for the mad hatter design based on our original color scheme:

So, again, we decided not to do the mad hatter style and we also changed the color scheme a bit. And after I showed her some of the above designs, she decided on a basic pattern she liked and I ran with it from there. Below are the designs I came up with after that:

In the end, we combined a couple of the designs and came up with a final sketch of what the cake will look like. The diamonds and dots shown will be made out of fondant, but the rest of the icing will be done using buttercream. Here's the final sketch:

We'll be putting the cake together next week, as the anniversary party is Thursday, September 20th. If you're interested in learing about the doll club, just click on the following link: http://www.flyingphoebe.com/

Wish us luck!!