Cake!

This is a cake I made a while back for my nephew.  It was a lot of fun and my first "fancy cake"  This is the cake that gave me the confidence to try things I thought were too complicated.  This cake was so easy so I thought I would share how I did it.
This was chocolate sour cream cake with mini chocolate chips. YUMM-O!  I used 10" and 8" round which was a little more cake then I needed but everyone went back for seconds so it worked out.  I crumb coated them, then iced them with a basic buttercream, stacked them and started decorating.
I used those coffee piroulines that come in a can.  I thought they kinda looked like bamboo or something tropical.  I broke them in half(ish) and added them to the bottom layer.  They weren't exactly the same, which I liked.  Then I piped grass with a Wilton 233 tip.  It was pretty simple.  Just straight vertical lines.  (Leave a space for your waterfall)
Next, I added the sand.  To make the sand I used my food chopper to crumble graham crackers then blended it with brown sugar.  I sprinkled it on the beach areas. 

Now it's time for the waterfall! I outlined the space I wanted to be the waterfall and simply covered the buttercream with Wilton's blue sparkle gel. I wasn't sure about the sparkle but it was all they had.  I think it made it look more like water.  The final touch was shredded coconut to look like the plunge pool of the waterfall.

Next, I cut toasted coconut marshmallows (I got them from Walmart but I just posted that so you could see a pic) I just cut them in irregular pieces to look kind of like rocks or sand piles or something. They do have candy coated chocolate in colors and shapes that look like rocks but I didn't think they were big enough.  I lined the waterfall with them but it's not necessary.  Then you can decorate with whatever you want.  This was my first cake so I did use a couple things that were inedible- the palm tree and the flowers (they were plastic barrettes that I cut apart)  and I added the teddy bears

This is the smash cake I made to go with it for a swim themed birthday party. I partially mixed blue icing coloring so that it would give me a little color variance when I iced the "waves" in the water. I used coconut as if the water was rushing the beach. and the sand I made for the cake above.
For the fun part... the bears! I used teddy grahams and iced on little goggles, snorkels, swimsuits, trunks and even bikinis with royal icing. I used gummy life savers for the little floatie rings. Then I cut fruit roll-ups for the beach towels on the beach. Finally, I added some colored goldfish crackers in the water. This cake was so fun and the birthday boy loved it! 

Here is a better view of the top

Please excuse my kitchen. I am a very messy baker!  Actually, I'm a messy everything.  I use every possible gadget and appliance and it makes clean-up tons of fun. I hope you like the cakes.  I know they aren't "professional-grade" but I'm proud of them anyway.  This was the start of a hobby for me.  It has been so much fun creating cakes, very rewarding to be able to give them to my friends and family and DELICIOUS, if I do say so myself.  I have improved along the way but not to a level that I would want to or even could do this professionally.  I'm adding this to a very long list of hobbies!  Thanks for looking!!!