Make the lion topper a few days in advance to allow it to set and also to avoid last-minute rush in completing the cake.

To make the lion, tint some white fondant with Wilton Golden Yellow food color and knead some CMC into it for added stability.

For the mane, use chocolate fondant. Start by forming the body of the lion and attach all four legs to it. And then shape the face. Add all the facial features first, including the ears before attaching it to the body with fondant glue.

And then add the mane. For the mane, cut out oval pieces of fondant using the oval plunger cutter and pinch the ends to make them slightly pointy. And then attach them all around the head with fondant glue. Also add these to the back of the head.

As for the cakes, once baked, let them cool down completely to room temperature before decorating.

Level the tops of each layer. Sandwich both the 6 inches layers with some buttercream in between and crumb coat the stacked layers. And then cover the tier with blue fondant. Repeat the process for the 9 inch cake layers, but cover them in yellow fondant.

Next, stack both cake tiers. To stack, poke in a few bubble tea straws on the bottom tier to help support and hold the weight of the top tier cake.

Once stacked, add the colorful wide and narrow strips alternately all around the bottom tier. Use 3 colors for the strips namely magenta, green and blue. Cut these with the pizza cutting wheel guided by a ruler and attach them to the cake with shortening at equal intervals.

To make the large number ‘2’ on the front of the top tier cake, roll some blue fondant into a thick rope and from the number by hand.

You can use a paper template (hand drawn or printed) as a guide to form the number. Let the fondant number firm up slightly before lifting and attaching to the front of the cake with fondant glue.

Using the same magenta, green and blue fondant that was used for the strips on the bottom tier, make round cut outs in random sizes and attach them to the cake in random order. Also add yellow colored round cut outs for this tier. Attach these polka dots with shortening.

Next to go on the cake was the birthday boy’s name. Roll some white fondant thin and use the triangle plunger cutter to cut the white buntings.

For the alphabets, tint some white gum paste blue and roll it as thin as possible. Use the FMM block letters cutter to cut out the alphabets. Attach these to the white buntings with shortening.

Next, use the extruder tool and pipe out a long strip of blue fondant. Attach this to the cake with some shortening.

And then attach the bunting to the string. Trim off any excess blue fondant strip.

To cover the ends, roll and cut out some blue stars and attach them to the cake.

For the top tier, use the extruder tool to pipe out yellow and green strips separately and then twist them together by hand to form the twisted rope. Place this twisted rope around the base of the top tier. Secure it in place with shortening.

For the bottom tier, use the extruder tool to pipe out a long strip of blue fondant and attach it as the border for the bottom tier.

And finally, add the lion topper to complete the lion birthday cake decoration.