Vern's 2nd SEA TURTLE Birthday Cake

Vern's 2yo SEA TURTLE Birthday Cake - photo credits: Alex Yeap

This year I was contemplating for a long time over Vern's birthday theme. Earlier, I wanted to do Animal Theme for him because my little loves the animals. But then maybe it should be Dear Zoo Theme as he learned his animals from there.

But in the end, I decided on the theme Sea Turtle based on his favourite Sea Turtle soft toy.
He recently has a thing for this particular Sea Turtle soft toy we got from Marriott Hotel during our recent Phuket Trip.

He had been bringing his turtle out with him, and I must admit it has been really cute.  He simply calls it "Turtle" and his Turtle has been accompanying him on his car trips and even for breakfast, so they are like best friends.

 

And so I decided to use that as his theme.
The catch is however how do I duplicate this Turtle of his on his birthday cake?

I've always been decorating my kids' birthday cakes on my own so that they are unique and one-of-a-kind (and erm, to save cost too!).
I've got a few ideas of using edible stuff to create a turtle on his cake, but then it wouldn't look like his Turtle and that kinda defeats the purpose of this theme, right?

So in the end, I sent a few pics of his turtle and sent to my friend Cheryl from The After Meal and requested for her to do for me a small fondant of the turtle. I also requested for a blue plain cake.

 

As usual, she didn't disappoint.
The fondant turtle came out beautiful and looked exactly like Vern's Sea Turtle.

  

And the blue cake looked flawless as well, with just the correct blue tones. The cake itself is the "sea/ocean/waters"

 

And so I got to work.

I bought a few candies in which I may need to decorate it with depending on how much space I have left on the cake.

Firstly, I poured the crushed peanuts (which I bought from the ban chang kuih seller at the pasar malam) on top of the cake to represent the "sands"

Then I used the Green Tea Pocky Sticks to form the words V E R N and then adhered them to the sides of the cake. 

And then I added the cut out stars from the candies which are "starfishes" along with the V E R N on the sides.

Plopped the Sea Turtle on top. 

Well, then I find the space quite tight but yet lacked some elements.

Should I or should I not put the mini shells on the sand as well?

Cheryl assured me that the addition of the shells looked fine. I trusted her judgement as she is a perfectionist as well ;)

And truth to be told, it looked just fine, well more than fine actually....
It looked awesome!

Added the 2 candles on top and it was an awesome one-of-a-kind SEA TURTLE Birthday Cake for Vern!

Photo credits: Alex Yeap

Click below to get inspirations from all the birthday cakes I've decorated for my kids' birthdays!

(Click to view Shern's 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th & 8th birthday cakes)

(Click to view Khye's 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th birthday cakes)
(Click to view Vern's 1st birthday cake)

Credits: 
Plain Blue Cake: The After Meal
Fondant Turtle: The After Meal