Mermaid Ombre Cake

The customer wanted a "simple" mermaid / Under The Sea cake, but like always things seem to get out of hand.  I tried to control myself, but if I see a blank spot, I need to put something in the void.  I'm sure I have some kind of OCD.

For reference, the cake on the bottom is an 8" and the cake on the top is a 6".  It serves about 36 (according to the Wilton serving chart.)  

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The three ombre colors are:

1. AmeriColor Soft Pink (with a touch of Regal Purple), 
2. AmeriColor Regal Purple, and 
3. AmeriColor Royal Blue (with a touch of Regal Purple)

To get the ombre look, I just stacked the three colors on the side of the cake and smeared them together using a bench scraper.  To get the "air-brushed" look, I lightly sprayed the center section of each tier with Wilton's Violet Color Mist Food Spray .  The color mist just softens the line between the different colors and gives it a wispy look.  Originally I planed on using Cocoa Butter Spray Velvet, but when I did a test, it didn't look very good.  The cocoa velvet was too dense and opaque, and had too much texture.  I liked the color mist a lot better.  So wispy.

For the decorations, I made everything using a Cricut Cutter and regular card stock paper.  I found the free downloadable SVG patterns at The Pineapple Paper Company.   It saved a lot of time not having to design my own patterns.  But in hindsight I should have used some kind of vinyl or  greaseproof paper for the decorations.  Wherever the paper touched the icing, big grease spots formed on the card stock.  I had to back the paper with hot glue to prevent it from touching the cake.  But looking at the finished cake, the gap between the decorations and the cake gave it a nice look.

So all-in-all a pretty easy cake.  Wish there were all this stress free.

Happy Decorating,

Carol