Hobnails

You will want to use a lot of light frosting for this.  Press the back of a spoon into the frosting, twist and lift to make swirls.  Experiment with different size spoons.  With a large wooded spoon you can make make large tear shaped petals.   I think that this technique works great when [...]

I found a great article called Easy Decorating Tips for the Decorating Impaired by Eisla Sebastian.
Her four tips are:

Use Premixed Frostings
Use Edible Flowers
Use Toys
Use Pre-Made Frosting Inserts

You can read the whole article here.
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Preparing a a smooth iced cake is important for the best looking cake possible. If you have ever iced a cake before, you know the annoyance of having bits of crumbs in the frosting. To prevent crumbs you’ll need to apply a crumb coat.

Once your cake has cooled completely and been [...]

Leveling:
The key to picture perfect cakes is leveling. In this part of the Preparing to Decorate Your Cake series, I’ll discuss a few tips that will make leveling your cake a breeze.
Before you level your cake, make sure it has cooled for one hour. If you have frozen your cake layers then you [...]

Familiarize yourself with these common words used in cake decorating.

Attach – Securing decorations to your cake using icing as “glue”
Border – Decoration used around the top, side or base of a cake.
Buttercream -  A smooth, creamy icing made from butter, that stays soft so it’s easy to cut through.
Filling – Frosting, preserves, [...]

One of my most difficult tasks when making a cake is telling my family they have to wait!  When I was making my St. Patrick’s Day cake I thought of a fun way to make use of the excess cake that was trimmed off during the leveling process.
I used the sandwich cutter that I bought [...]