Swags

The bottom tier of the cake featured swags of red, white and blue.   I used my pasta roller, and rolled out the fondant and placed it on my work mat.  I then used a ribbon cutter (from Geraldine Randlesome/Creative Cutters) to cut a ribbon the width that I wanted.  I then cut the ribbon to length (a little longer than I needed for the side of the tier) and flipped it over.  I folded one edge over (VERY lightly - you do NOT want a crease in the fondant) to produce a soft fold on one side.  I then wet the spots on the cake where I was going to attach the ends of the swag and placed the swag on the tier.  This is the same method that Geraldine teaches in her classes, btw.

I started with the red, and did red all the way around the tier.  I left some space at each 'corner' between the swags.  I don't really know why, I don't really know what I was thinking.  One I had the red done, I proceeded with the white and blue ones.  In addition to wetting the cake near the corners, I also wet the flat part of the previous swag, so it would be stuck on there pretty good. (I promise this will all make more sense when you see the pictures!).  After attaching each swag to the tier, I trimmed the ends with my palette knife to make them look better, and smoothed the edges with my finger.

After I finished with the swags, I took a look at the cake:

I knew I had to do something to cover the corners, but didn't really have an idea.  I had made yellow "Support Our Troops" ribbons, but they would not sufficiently cover the corners.  I started to freak out, and called JEM for her opinion.  We ended up coming up with the idea to put red 'ribbons' over the corners, so I went ahead and did that:

I then tried to put the yellow support ribbons on the corners, and they just didn't look right.  After another consultation with JEM (What would I do without her?!?!?!?!?!), I cut out some stars, painted them gold with luster dust and vodka, and attached them to the corners: