"Justice for Girls" Monkey Themed Cake

My little niece turned 8 and loves the monkey from the Justice for Girls clothing store and with a sleep over party, I wanted to create the perfect little cake incorporating the Monkey, the bright and funky store themed style and a bed. Her father said she was always laying on her bed listening to her iTouch so I just had to add that too =)

The cake is an 8 x 5 x 3 inch Dark Chocolate Cake covered in Chocolate IMBC - here's a picture of it in the middle of being crumb coated.

Once I covered the cake over with the IMBC, I let it sit in the fridge to firm up while I prepared the bed spread to lay over it.

I rolled the MMF out into a rectangle (11 x 11 inch - 5x8 inch top with 3 inches down 3 of the sides), I used a diamond impression mat to lightly mark the pattern over it.  With a sewing tracing wheel, I marked the lines then lightly pressed in the creases at each intersection with a gumpaste veining tool.

I then lay it over the cake and smoothed it into place.  The headboard was made 2 days prior to allow time to dry out of MMF mixed with Tylose and it sits flat up against the back of the cake.

I then added a small round "button" into each intersection and dusted the creases of the bed spread with pink petal dust.

The texture on the little rug was made by using the tip of the star piping tip then dusted over with lilac petal dust.  I topped them with a pair of slippers =) for the little monkey.

The monkey is made out of modeling chocolate (the head is a RKT covered in modeling chocolate).  I loved how she turned out - Laying on the bed, listening to her iTouch.

another view of the monkey....  I made the bow and the letters of her name out of MMF (mixed with Tylose) then dusted them with edible Glitter.

I just had to add the banana peel beside the bed =)

I also made a bunch of mini banana's to top the cupcakes with (1 to 1.5 inches).  Here they're being dusted in sunflower and dogwood brown petal dust.

The 4 steps to creating a gumpaste banana (left to right):

1) Model the banana out of yellow gumpaste (here I used MMF mixed with Tylose)

2) Dust them over with a yellow or sunflower petal dust

3) Lightly and randomly, dust them with brown or dogwood petal dust

4) Steam them lightly to set the color = perfect, little, ripe bananas.  It would have been nice to have added some banana extract to them but I didn't think about it until they were done.

Some of the cupcake toppers.  We had 4 dozen Red Velvet cupcakes to top with decorations so I did an assortment of hearts, stars, flower blossoms, peace signs, banana's, the Monkey and #8.

My sister-in-law baked her Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and I topped then off with the decorations and finished off the dessert table with some Chocolate Peppermint Cake Balls.  It all came together perfectly and I love the theme and colors - so Kayla!