Such A Great Height

This was a lot of fun and it's finally finished! It was a four day project (I tend to take my time on these things...) I started by printing the design from Threadless.com and used an Exacto knife to cut it out of gum paste. I used rolled up poster board to form the cut outs to the right curves for the 8" and 6" diameter cakes. Once they were dry, I inserted green gum paste eyes and dusted them with yellow luster dust to give them some shine. Next, I made loads of leaves out of fondant. I couldn't believe how many leaves I needed. There must be at least four hundred leaves on this little cake! I baked the cake from scratch using a new Milky Way cake recipe that I wanted to try. I covered the cake with green fondant, stacked the cake, and used edible glue to stick on the gum paste cut-outs of the giraffes, the little yellow eyes, and all of the leaves. I painted on the spots with gel food color watered down with gin. It was tough to take it apart and eat it, but what else are cakes good for? It was very tasty!
Thanks for creating this contest! Maybe I'll get another one in there before the deadline... we'll see.