Cake Decorating 201

I am currently participating in the second part of the Wilton cake decorating course, entitled "Flowers and Cake Design". I hate flowers on cakes, they're common. But alas, I digress. The price and timing of the course were right. I needed some new skills. Today was week three of the four week course, learning how to make this sort of ugly thing.

In part one, I discovered that buttercream icing is nothing more than a slab of fat with icing sugar in it. I also learned some useful skills and eventually, I turned out a pretty decent cake of my own design. I was satisfied with the course, although I still lacked many skills at the end.

So far, in part two, I've found out that royal icing is not just gingerbread house glue. When fashioned into a shape and dried, you have a dried shape. Also, small amounts of coloured fondant mixed with gum paste can be used for making expensive flowers.

For three weeks, the class has been making an assortment of flowers. I wasn't clear on why except to learn how to make them. An overview of what was to happen during these four weeks would have been helpful, but alas, our directions each week were to make any colour of icing and green icing. If I had known why, I would have planned my colours more carefully. I usually created one or two flowers and eventually tossed them in the trash.  A few came home with me and are currently sitting in a dish on my buffet.

Today, I found out that we were supposed to keep the flowers, dry them all, and bring them to decorate a cake next week. Oops. The flowers above are gone. I have these left.

Tonight, I must plan my final cake and create appropriate replacement flowers so that they will dry by next Wednesday. I am resisting the temptation to make fairies, fruits or forest creatures out of my remaining gum paste and royal icing. The course is entitled "Flowers and Cake Design". I want my certificate but I don't want a boring flowered cake. Any ideas or suggestions?