It took me many hours(a lot of it being the cooling down portion).  I thought many hours on the design I wanted for my sons Birthday cake, he was turning 2, and for whatever reason, I felt we ought to do pirates this year.  So I figured either to have pirates on a ship, the beach, or to make the cake look like the Jolly Roger flag.  I could not find the boat I liked, and a clack cake sounded a little too messy, sooo I went with the Pirates and treasure on the beach.

   For starters, if you are only going to do a one layer sheet cake, you only do one cake mix, but if you do it with 2 layers, than you will need 2 cake mixes.  Do whatever flavor you prefer of course, Chocolate wins hands down in our family.  Put them on a cardboard sheat, if you have no formal cake platters, they sell these at bakories, party stores and craft storesOnce you have the cakes baked and cooled, give them a base frost first.  For the entire project I recommend 3 tubs of frosting.  I prefer whipped white frosting, but if you like Vanilla, butter cream, or cream cheese frosting, thats your call.  For the beach I put Nilla wafers through the food processor, till it looked just like sand, if you do not have one, use a blender, or put in a ziploc bag, place a towel over the bag and hit with a hammer, tendorizer, or mallot.  Once ground up spread the crumbs on the portion of the cake you want designated as the beach.  For the waves, tint the frosting, a light shad of blue, because water is always lightest when it hits the shore.  When you add the waves, sweep the spreader towards the beach, once you get your first row of waves add more blue tint, mix as much as you wish and finish adding the waves.  Viola, you have yourself a beach cake, to personalize as you see fit.

   For me  I added pirates, specifically Jack Sparrow, and Will Turner, I also added some plastic palm trees, and a treasure chest full of chocolate gold coins( I got mine from Disneyland, because they had the Pirates of the Carribean emblem on them).  The treasure box I got at Party city, and the Palm trees, and Pirates I got at Jensens.  For the fun of it, I added gummy sharks, and fashioned gummiworms into an Octopus.  That was difficult, but I made it work.  If you are taking it to another location, I reccomend you buy a cakebox to transport it in, so it doesn't get smashed.  If you have a cooler that the cake could fit, in good, cause we did not and my cake shifted, a lot.  Im not sure if I really saved any money baking my sons birthday cake, but I feel it was worth the time and money I took to make it myself.  I wish you luck with yours, and happy baking.