Nautical Themed Birthday Cake with Sailboat Topper

Tonight  I want to share with you a new Nautical Themed Birthday Cake with a Sailboat Topper.

This cake is inspired by a Pink Cake Box design.  I was really terrified to try and replicate one of her designs... her cakes are always so perfect!  But after looking it over for a little while, I came up with a design that was very similar but had a few changes.

I also had to do this cake smaller than her cake appeared so I rearranged some elements to get them better organized on the smaller cake and changed up the flags specifically so I could add a name!

This cake was 6" and 8" round tiers with all vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream.  With the exception of the red, it was covered and decorated almost entirely with homemade marshmallow fondant.  The red was Satin Ice Red Vanilla Fondant.

The rope borders for the cake were done with my extruder.  I also used the extruder to do the rope for the flags/bunting with the name.    The letters for the name were done with FMM Block Letters Tappit Cutters.    The wheels were cut by hand from gum paste!

I used a texture mat for the darker blue then cut a random wave pattern with my pastry wheel.  I hand-cut the "1" and the anchor.

The sailboat and whale (tail) were also made with gum paste.  I made them about 3 days in advance so they'd have plenty of time to dry/harden.

I was absolutely in love with this cake by the time it was done!  I love the mix of soft and bright colors and the clean design!

Love this cake? Check out my other nautical-themed cakes here:

• "Anchors Aweigh" Nautical Theme Cake with a Crab on Top!
• Girly Nautical Anchor Cake
• Shark Attack Cake (perfect for Shark Week!)

What do you think?  Do you have any questions about this cake or design?  Please leave me a comment/question and I'll help out if I can!