The life of a Lisa Frank cake

(Friday - 7:30pm) 
I'm sooooper crazy excited about this cake!!  Aside from it being an exercise in creative frosting - it's for the most adorable-est - squeezy-est cutie pattootie on the planet!! :D  Her name is Ava and she's so stinking adorable it's crazy!! :D 

A couple of months ago, her Mom asked me if I could do a Lisa Frank cake for Ava's 5th birthday.  Ummm...HECK YEAH!!  I'd LOVE to!!  Lisa Frank Rocks!!  I've been trying to come up with a plan for this cake for a few weeks now, but I knew my inspiration would come from the Birthday Girl. :)

I spoke with Miss Ava last weekend when I dropped off her little sisters cupcake cake.  I asked Miss Ava what she would like to have on her cake and she was extreeeemely polite when she gave me the list; peace signs, hearts, stars and rainbows.  I asked her if it was ok if I put a Unicorn on the cake too.  She smiled reeeeely big and nodded yes.  YAY! Unicorns are my favorite!! :D 

I baked her cake earlier in the week and froze it so that it would be ready to decorate today.  It's easier to decorate a frozen cake - so I pulled it out of the freezer tonight and started to make all the colors...red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, lavender and purple...Done!!  I printed a picture of a "Lisa Frank Unicorn" as a reference too.  My plan is to make a Unicorn face on the top of the cake with Hair spilling down the sides...then I can sneak hearts and peace signs and stars etc. in the Unicorns hair!  Eeek!  I'm soo excited. :)  (*note...since I printed the picture of the "unicorn" I have realized that it is - in fact - a horse!!  lol oops! *)  When it is done...It will be a Unicorn. ;)  I can't quite decide, though, if I should use fondant on the cake or not...fondant gets soo mushy under frosting so I might just use white fondant for the unicorn face and cut it out etc...Or I could flat frost in white as a base and go from there.  I'm not sure yet but I'll figure it out as I go.  :)  I'll post more later with progress. :)

(10:45pm)

I opted for a fondant face...and I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to do the shading but I figured I'd take it 1 step at a time :) I started by cutting out the horse outline from white fondant...like this - 

and carving the face outline into it...like this! :)

Then I was stuck trying to figure out the shading...do I use frosting?  Nah - that would be awful and lumpy and not how I wanted her to look...I'M A GENIUS!!  I decided to use food coloring and paint it on!!...like this!!  

  :)  So far, I'm happy with how it's working out. :)  It's taking a little bit longer than I had planned...but since I really didn't have a plan...I guess I should be pleased with my progress. :) Anyway - the cakes that I have to figure out as I go are the ones I enjoy the most anyway. :)  I think I might put the face on the cake and finish it up in the morning though.  I'll post more later as I go. :)