Semi-newbie needs help

Hello everyone. So I’ve been dabbling off and on in cake decorating for the last several years. Kinda got started with it during Covid when there was nothing else to do so found myself “attending” YouTube university back then but very recently I got back into it out of boredom and I really want to elevate my cake decorating skills. So this cake is my first foray back into the fold last week and I thought it was pretty good for not having baked a cake or picked up a piping bag since 2022. But I always struggle with the amount of icing…like the thickness (even-ness) of the frosting and the edges are never as smooth as I want because I end up taking of too much icing of as I smoothing and I have to keep going back over it with frosting so it gets me frustrated. I think that was what kind of deterred me the last couple of starts. Any tips on even-ness and smoothing would be great!