Books Can Take You Wherever You Want To Be

I just dropped this off at the Imagination Library's Great Cake Bake 2015, there is some very stiff competition this year that is quite intimidating.  Because this is for the Imagination Library, I try to center around books so with the lovely 2 weeks straight of snow days around here, the cake is intended to show that no matter where you are, you can escape to a whole new place within a book.

The snowman base and sand pail are the cake parts although for competition, this one is not edible.  The tree is modeling chocolate covering PVC pipe, the icicles are pulled sugar, the snowflakes poured sugar.  The leaves on the tree are pastillage with airbrushed color (this was a new medium for me so I learned a lot).  The seashells are all gumpaste and hand dusted with the layers of color.  The books are gumpaste with rice paper pages inside airbrushed and hand painted to match the books they represent.  The sand is graham cracker crumbs, pureed crackers, and brown sugar mixed together.  The mittens and hat are fondant.  I really enjoyed working with all of the mediums together on this.