Step-by-step guide to creating a Chicagoland weather map with frosting and an airbrush machine:

1. Cover cake board with fondant and frost the cake with buttercream.

2. Put plastic wrap around the cake board so you don’t spray it with the airbrush machine! 🙂

3. Start drawing those counties! Yikes, there are a lot of counties in Illinois!

4. Add a black border to tie it all together. Add a black fondant Lake Michigan.

5. Using metal cookie-cutters, cut the black letters out of fondant. Begin to pipe snowflakes.

  6. Send final photo to Tom Skilling at WGN and wait for him to write you back with the world’s nicest compliments- which he did, because he’s the coolest weatherman ever!