I know that a lot of people are not fans of fondant, they say it tastes bad and it is notoriously hard to work with but I really like it. I make my own, which tastes pretty yummy in my opinion. Using fondant can be as simple as using cookie cutters to stamp out flowers to cover a cake. To the left is one of my first fondant cakes, I covered and decorated the cake with fondant in one of my classes. All the flowers came from a pre-made, pre-colored box of fondant and I simply rolled it out, cut them then put them on the cake. I think it turned out pretty good, the piping is a version of lace technique which is pretty tedious but I love the result.
This cake is a more recent one using a similar idea, the more polished look comes from the fact that all the fondant is colored by me to get the specific shades of pink I needed. I also used a fondant tool to make the flowers have a more realistic cupped shape. Both cakes were covered with fondant and the flowers were cut using the same cutter, to me its just the details that make the more recent one look more refined. 
This cake was made for a July 4th celebration in 2010. I used fondant to cover the cake as well as to make the stars and stripes. There were originally three stripes then I cut into the third one with my handy Exacto knife to make the wavy line. I love the clean lines of this cake. 
This was a Christmas 2010 cake made for my husband's work Christmas Party. Yes it is a pickle dressed is Christmas gear. I used fondant here to cover the cake as well as for all the detail work including the hands, feet, face, and hat. I had so much fun with this cake. It was a red velvet cake inside so it tasted yummy too. The more I work with fondant the more I think it is worth the trouble to learn to use it and use it well. I do, however, think my next post will be dedicated to buttercream cakes, delicious buttercream!
