Decorating Cake Jewelry Boxes

I once took a cake decorating class many years ago but didn't follow through with it because I didn't want to become a cake decorator. And the icing recipe grossed me out. The main ingredient in buttercream frosting is shortening. You would think it would be butter... or cream. I didn't see that one coming and I'm sure most people don't know what's in it. I can't eat icing now without thinking I'm eating a cup of grease... It's not easy to gross me out.

I also didn't want to mix recipes and do all that cooking. All I wanted to do was decorate them. Decorator, not baker.

And I discovered a way to do that years ago with wood patch. Wood patch can be thinned but it has to be painted because it's a yellowish yuk color when it dries. I didn't think at the time that spackling would work because it's too crumbly. It did not look as good as spackling does.

But times have changed and I discovered vinyl spackling. I also add corn starch and acrylic paint to it to get the durability and colors I want. For some reason I just couldn't figure that out years ago. Now I see everyone using spackling to decorate art cakes and I like it.

I discovered at the same time how to make porcelain clay, Kawaii characters and resin clay. It's like a whole new world just opened up and so I put it all together in these little cakes. Perfect for upcoming Christmas time.

I couldn't make money off of these even if I sold them because they are so labor intensive and each step takes a while (8 to 24 hours) to dry. I've been working on these for 2 to 3 weeks now and just got done. I coated all of them with a clear matt coating for protection.

I was asked if I had instruction videos for these and I don't. I don't have time and besides, there are plenty of videos out there for all of the different ways to make each step of these. I will say that piping the icing was nerve wracking for me and I still don't feel like I'm very good at it. I think I could be with a lot of practice but who has time for that? I will tell you that I got all my silicone molds and resin casting material off of Amazon. I already had the cake decorating tip (#21), piping bags, paint and scalloped scissors to make these.

I had to scrape the icing off and do it again on six of the cakes before I got something I liked. I even practiced a lot first so I'd say even if you're not good at doing something, just keep at it until it looks better. Happy decorating!