Monster Cake for a First Birthday

I found an idea similar to this one on Pinterest and I thought it would be perfect for my one-year-old's first birthday party.

Again, being short on time, I made the cake layers the week before the party.  I made 9-, 8- and 6-inch rounds out of boxed funfetti cake mixes (it took 2 to make these 3 layers.)  Once they had cooled I wrapped each layer in a sheet of waxed paper and then a sheet of aluminum foil.  This time I took the layers out the morning that I frosted the cake (I figured they might be easier to handle if they were still partially frozen.)  I used a can of vanilla frosting to do the crumb coating.  This is the beginning of the monster cake:

The frosting I used for decorating is a Meringue Buttercream recipe from Martha Stewart.  It's yummy, but it is much more time consuming than regular ol' powdered sugar based frosting.  I chose this recipe because it stated in the recipe that it was good for decorating--which it completely was!  I frosted the day before the party and the frosting held it's shape perfectly.

I used Americolor gel paste to color the frosting again (they really are the best!!!)  The bottom layer was made using a large star tip (I forget which size.)

The middle layer I used a grass tip.  It totally blew my daughters mind away when she saw that the frosting really was starting to look like monster fur!

The top layer was made using a smaller star tip.  I loved how the colors turned out!

After I was done dipping my monster eyeball cakepops, I used the leftover white chocolate and milk chocolate pieces to make extra eyeball candies.  (Also my daughter is in a major playing-dressup-phase which includes all of her old dance costumes.  Adorable.)

I used 6 of the large eyeball candies for the cake.  Here is the final product again!  With advance planning, this cake really wasn't hard at all to make!!

The man of the hour.  He got to demolish the top layer while the rest of us enjoyed slices of the bottom layer.