Monster Truck Cake

This weekend I completed a 'monster truck' cake for my hubby's grandson, who turned 2 last month.  I had fun with it.. the nice thing about a cake like this is everything doesn't have to be perfect ('cause monster trucks are messy).. although I still attempted perfection every step of the way - I can't help myself!  

Lately I've been longing to do 'cake bunting'.  I'm seeing it everywhere and love how it looks on a cake.. just waiting for the right opportunity.  Cake bunting is basically mini flags/pennants strung across the cake, sometimes with a message or name on it - super cute!  So I decided to try it out with this cake, since it was monster truck themed, I thought the flags/signage would be perfect.  Basically I purchased red and yellow fabric (birthday party color scheme), printed a bunting template offline, then traced the template onto my fabric and cut all the pieces out, making sure I had enough for my cake message.  I had some racing flag ribbon that I edged my cake board with, which I also used on some of the bunting to tie it all together.  Then I attached the fabric pennants to some black embroidery floss, tying the ends to some Wilton lollipop sticks, which I later stuck right into my cake on an angle like in the pic below.

Here are some shots of my first attempt at cake bunting.. I thought it turned out very cute.. which is why you'll probably be seeing more of it on future cakes of mine ;)  ..You may be wondering why Elmo is on a monster truck cake? .. Well the birthday boy's mom asked if Elmo could somehow be incorporated (apparently the birthday boy loves him almost as much as monster trucks! :)  .. I tried to get Elmo on the cake in a subtle way since he didn't really coincide with the overall theme of the cake.. what do you think?

Here is the completed cake.. cookies & cream cake with cookies & cream filling, iced in buttercream, with a top layer of ganache ('mud'), and covered in crushed oreos ('dirt').. it was yum!