American Baker in Germany

This cake was to celebrate my oldest daughter's first day of first grade. It's a huge deal here in Germany. My daughter was vacillating between joy and tears. But, being the daughter of a cake decorator, she has very detailed ideas of what kind of cake she wants. She wanted the cake to be covered in pink fondant. She wanted school supplies on it, but preferably not on the top. She wanted chocolate cake and Swiss meringue buttercream. I started out by getting out all colors of fondant.  I wanted to make some colored pencils. I start out by making a snake of the color I'm using and cutting them in short lengths. Then I made tiny little cone shapes of the same color.  Then I get some flesh-colored fondant out and roll it into a cone shape.  I trim the back end to make it flat.  Then I cut off the tip to make it flat, too.  Then, I put some edible glue on the end of the yellow cylinder.  I stick on the flesh-colored cone and add some...