Simple Birthday cake

This is an 8" square sponge cake I made recently for a friend of the family. It was his 82nd Birthday and I wanted to make a simple but elegant cake just to say Happy Birthday. I made the swags with my sugar craft gun then made the icing bows to place over the joins where the swags met. Using Royal Icing coloured blue I piped four small dots down from each bow. Royal icing was also used for piping the shell trail around the base of the cake and the icing on the board itself is crimped at the edges. I wanted it to be quite traditional but obviously didn't want to include flowers on a cake for a man. Although you cannot see it clearly in this photograph there is a sparkly blue ribbon around the cake board.