Slowly improving on my cake decorating skills! 😍

I've been practicing on my cakes so I challenged to submit one to the State Fair. I'm still not very confident in my piping, so I thought, hey, nature is pretty imperfect, so let's go with that.

First time working with Swiss meringue buttercream AND fondant. Buttercream icing that I painted with food coloring for the trunk. Buttercream vines. Fondant mushrooms and butterflies (also painted). The dirt is crushed graham crackers with food coloring and the moss is green cake pieces.

The cake is vanilla, soaked in strawberry basil syrup, with lemon curd and strawberry basil layers and lemon flavored buttercream icing. 🤤

I think this is like my 7th, maybe 8th cake I've decorated.

I'm pretty dang proud of this one and can't wait for people to see it in person!