This “All the Animals in the Graveyard” Day of the Dead cake reflects the duality of life and death, while still very whimsical and full of lovely plastic cake toppers, mostly vintage, and lucite flowers. Half the graveyard is filled with celebratory colorful flowers and pretty animals, including a couple of rabbits, a blue rooster, a pink duck and a chick hatching from its shell. This side of the graveyard is still full of colorful life. On the other, more somber side of the graveyard, there is a woman dressed all in white and she is surrounded by white rabbits, white ducks, and black, brown and white flowers, symbolizing the transition into death.

All my icing is created from high quality acrylic artist materials, from a formula I’ve developed over the last 30 years, and the colors are hand mixed by me and extremely colorfast. My cake sculptures are a time consuming process as I start by tracking down interesting vintage cake toppers, plastic toys, lucite and celluloid decorations, and anything else that I like that is washable. I then ice the sculptures (starting with a dense styrofoam base) by layering multiple layers of faux icing over several days, or weeks – and I make all the faux sugar roses, or other faux icing decorations, like medallions, in advance. The sculptures are washable with soapy water and a hand sprayer.