What to make for a girl's 17th birthday cake?

I am very excited to be asked to make a cake for my son's sweetheart. She will be turning 17 next month. I am thinking something tiered and simple. Maybe with ribbons around the bases and a few large, beautiful gumpaste flowers. The fancy kind. :) Daisies? Sunflowers? I really like this one:

Or maybe a cake and cupcake combo on a pretty tower, like this:

Or am I off the mark entirely? What do you think? Any suggestions???

Hippy Birthday Cake

My dear friend asked me to make her daughter's birthday cake this year. The theme was 1970's. Of course, the very popular peace sign had to be involved and lots of bright colors. Originally thinking a two-tiered cake with a gumpaste peace sign on top would be perfect, we eventually decided to get a larger 1/2 sheet cake from a local bakery in order to be able to feed everyone at the party. I do not have a pan big enough to make the sheet cake, so this was a perfect plan and the cake was delicious!

Lauren and I used Wilton's neon-colored fondant to make different sized flowers and smiley faces. We made over 100 of them, but it was fun and the Wilton fondant is so easy to work with that it went by quickly. I made the peace sign a week and a half earlier to make sure it dried completely. I mixed the neon green fondant with the gumpaste to get a sturdy 3-d peace sign. I put three toothpicks in the bottom while it was still soft so that when I placed it on the cake, the sign would stand up. Toothpicks worked very nicely.

We tried to add wires with small fondant balls on the ends, but they would not stay up and started to tear the cake. We even used the coffee straws inserted into the cake for more support, but it still did not work. Maybe it was the weight of the wire? Will have to try again using a lighter weight floral wire.

In the end the birthday girl was happy and she has the gumpaste peace sign to keep as a memento of her big day. She is such a sweetie and it was a pleasure to be able to make this for her. Happy Birthday Victoria!!!