This was my last cake of 2012!  It was delivered on New Years Eve to be served to a special birthday girl on New Years Day.  What a fabulous way for Alex to celebrate her 21st birthday!

This cake was a little bit tough for me, I have to admit.  I wasn’t given a specific direction, the guidelines were, pink and black, and leopard print.  I think I did a fine job, but I was agonizing over the perfect design!  When I finally decided what I wanted the cake to look like, I had to figure out how to apply the leopard print.  I found a great tutorial on one of my favorite cookie blogs.  Callye from the Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle has step by step instructions on how to create leopard print cookies.  I used her guidelines to paint the leopard print onto the cake.  I used black gel color and a paintbrush to paint the outlines.  Then I filled in the shapes with brown gel color.  Then I painted on some bronze airbrush color to give the spots some life.  I’m proud of my first leopard print cake!

A girly cake would not be complete without a pretty bow.  I made this bow out of black fondant.  To dress it up a bit I made a flattened ribbon rose for the center.  The bow center matches the black ribbon roses that adorn the top of the cake.

Here is a better view of the black ribbon roses.  Peeking out of the black roses is the number 21.  The whole cake was airbrushed in pearl shimmer color to give it some glitz and glam.  I love shimmer color!  Happy 21st Birthday Alex!