Filling a tall order

I was given the task to make my older sister's boyfriend's mother's birthday cake. Whooa say that ten times fast. Anyway, a Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake was the preferred and I obliged. I decided to do a test cake to make sure it was what they had in mind.
The cake was created from a few different chocolate cake recipes I had come across. The secret ingredient was a cup of brewed coffee instead of water. The coffee bring out the taste of cocoa powder which was chocolate flavoring.  This was my first time making fresh whipped cream from scratch. I was a little nervous about how runny it was at first, it took a lot of beating to get it to a solid consistency. Then I melted some heavy cream and gelatin let it set and added it to the fresh whipped cream. The strawberries were sliced very thin and stacked on the first and second layer of the cake. A chocolate ganache made from ghirardelli topped the cake and the decorated whole strawberries on the side. My taste testers said it was good and I am hired.
                                                       Here is the finished product

In my Wilton Cake decorating class we learned a bunch of different flowers that are made from royal icing. I have to say I really like working with royal icing because the clean up is so much easier than with butter cream. Betty (the instructor) told me to make fall colors so that we could use them for a harvest looking cake. We learned the violet, the wilton (Victorian rose), the primrose and the apple blossom, and the rose bud. The rose and the rosebud gave me lots of problems. I practiced and practiced but it was a lot of fun. Another thing that I learned, I have a tendency to make my icing very soft. Got to knock that off.

Here are a few samples of my flowers:

Sweetish,

Julie