Tutorial : How to make a fantasy flower

I must confess I am not the best at making flowers, my fingers are too bulky and I have not the biggest patient for making them look naturally perfect so I am more into organic look, or not so naturally perfect. Organic is my new word for referring to not super perfect pieces like this flowers I want to show you today.  

Let's start: 

                                         

Must of the time, I don't have enough time to let things dry or to spend hours and hours working perfectly into something, I have kids to feed, house to clean and several orders to finish. So I decided to start my flower by using a wooden skewer and a super tiny styrofoam ball, this one is just like half inch or around one inch. I glue it with hot glue so this little flower center will not go anywhere!!! then proceed with covering with gumpaste and form a sort of teardrop, 

  

                                    

Before it dryes completely, cut the teardrop using a really fine scissors, Get as many cuts you can to bring texture to the center of the flower 

Cut 18 gauge wire, add a small piece of gumpaste on the same color as your flower petals. This is a little trick I learn from My Dear friend Ruth; honestly I am not a flower person because my hands are so big and flowers really need delicate  fingers. Consider this, you will need one wire for each petal and I use about 5 to 7 petals on each flower, so I need to make this process for each petal. Start by cutting the wires, I get about 3 pieces for each wire, yes they are really long.  Dip the tip on edible glue and grab a little ball of gumpaste and place it on top of the wire, roll it pushing down and add it to the wire as small as possible you might need to get rid of some paste.  All this process should be done on the same day because the paste needs to be fresh so it can be attached to each part. 

                                           

Cut an  oval or a circle and reshape it as an oval using the rolling pin.With a toothpick, give some ruffle edges by rolling the toothpick back and forth. Keep in mind that if the gumpaste is too fresh, once you press it, it will stick to the table and it might get all sticky around the toothpick, on the other hand, if you let  the petal dry too much, once you roll the toothpick, it will break and will not give you any ruffle at all. Let  the petal rest for a bit, lets say 5 min. I cut many petals and put them inside a plastic.  Add some cornstarch, no shortening.    Great thing about these flowers is that they are fantasy and are not supposed to be perfect and as I mentioned before, I am not a flower person so I am trying to just simply make it look cute, nothing super fancy and perfect 

(Embrace your imperfections) 

                                      

Remember the little wires you prepared before?  Those wires will be glued on the back of each petal, because as I told you before, I am not a flower person and I cant even imagine me trying to wire each petal with super delicate fingers, sorry but that is not going to happen ,lol Great deal I found this solution that works perfect for me and my big fingers .  Let each petal dry on the drying spoons, which is basically big serving plastic spoons I found at Hobby Lobby on the party section, cut the handles and hot glue each one on a foam core, great idea from Ron Ben Israel.  

                                            

I painted the centers in silver as I was requested to, and after each petal is completely dry, I start attaching each one with floral tape, I like the white one instead of the green one.  These flowers are really organic and you can adjust each petal to what ever is convenient to you. This process is not the easiest part, at least for me it is hard to hold everything in place while I try to stretch the tape and going around and around the stick and adding more petals. Only thing I can say: If I did it, you also can !!!

                                             


Keep adding petals while you go around the stick and stretching the tape.  Do not worry about the back of the flowers, that will not be seen after you place them on the cake.

                                                    


As you can see, I try to keep the tape on the upper part of the wooden stick instead of going all the way down the stick. This flower will be inserted inside a cake and you do not want the non safe food tape, be inside the cake you will serve to your guests, so keep that in mind

Now cut each wire but make sure the floral tap is really stretch out so it be sticky enough to have all petals well attache to the wooden stick.  Now flowers are ready to be placed on your cake.  Flowers are exhausting work for me, but the final look on the cake is stunning !!!

Happy Caking !!!! 

Tutorial: Peppa Pig and Family

The good weather will soon start to come back, warmer days, longer day light and that means more fun to go out and have fun with the family. Thinking about the kids and my hubby and a sunny weekend, means always going to the park and have a large picnic, with yummy things and cake and chicken and sweets and and and !!! OMG I am definitely ready for the spring time even if that means dealing with seasonal allergies.
And Because I am thinking on my family, the sunshine and the picnic, I decided to make this cute family that my little niece adores  with  a strange devotion, LOL She actually helped me with the sandwich and the little ants dots.  So here is how to make them, so you can have them for your next celebration.

Let's Start:

                                             

Let's start with Daddy pig. He is the tallest and biggest of all so will be using more sugar paste (50/50 fondant gumpaste) I used a styrfoam ball of about 1/5" diameter.  Fondant must be a bit on the teal side, not exactly blue, I used about 70 to 80 grams and covered the styro ball with the fondant (if you are not sure how to, please check my previous posts)
His shape is more on the round shape.

                                            



Do exactly the same with mama pig, this time use about 40 to 50 grams of paste. This time the shape is more like a cone, she is wearing a dress, You should use both hands to tapper the top part and at the same time. press down to flat the bottom part of it.

                                            


Cut the excess on the top and smooth the sides so you end up with a 2 1/2" tall dress.

                                             


For Sister Peppa Pig you will need about 30 to 40 grams of red paste. Because she is not so big, you do not need any extra ball inside, just the paste, Remember that is if to much on the soft side, you should add CMC or Tylose. Do not work on a paste that is so soft that can't hold its shape. Start with a ball shape, and as you did with mamma pig, press down so you can have a flat bottom that look like a dress, but keep in mind that her shape is more rounded on top than mamma pig.

                                                   


Take a look at how shapes should look like to get Peppa. She is about 1 1/2" tall

This is brother pig shape. He is blue and about 1"

                                                        



Let all the bodies dry a bit while we work on the heads. Papa Pig's head is big, about 90 to 100 gram, so we will also need extra support, take in consideration that adding the styro ball, will allow you to use less paste and achieve a larger size with out having such a heavy piece. Other great thing about doing it this way, is that you can actually set the piece right away and put the head on top of body without feeling afraid of collapsing the whole piece. Use the same size styrofoam ball for the head and bring all the wrinkles to the top,

                                                      



Press and shape the piece bringing up the part that will be the nose, Use your index to model the part where the mouth should be. On the picture, the head is on its side

                                                         


Cut the excess and smooth the piece. Use your fingers to mark the part where we will add the lips and the eyes.

                                                   



You will end up with this shape, make sure to really push to shape the part where you will add the eyes and lips.  Make the little holes for the nose. Do the same with mamma pig but make sure to use less paste, about 70 grams paste.

                                          




For the kids you will no need any support, so use a piece of paste and start doing the same you did before on a smaller scale. If you have doubts about the proportions, check the head you are making with each body.

                                                 



Same shape for each head, but adjust the amount of paste in comparison with the size of each character.

                                     


Legs are made using half toothpick for each leg. For papa pig legs are longer for a larger body Roll the toothpick with your index finger so the fondant get attach to it.  Use small scissors to add the legs to the body. My fingers are bulky so it is really hard to hold in my finger such a small piece

                                                     



Arms are little pieces of paste, Papa Pig's arms are bigger and so on with the rest of the family

                                    




The dinosaur toy, is about 15 grams. Shape it as a teardrop.  Mark the part where the head will be

                                       



Cut the mouth with small scissors. These ones are used for embroidery.

                                             



Cut the scales on the back, add little limbs and glue it to the brother pig's body

                                          



Use round piping tips 10 and 12 for cutting little circles for the eyes and rosy cheeks. I play with the sizes by rolling the paste thinner or thicker and pressing the paste down to obtain a larger circle, Papa Pig's eyes and cheeks are obviously larger than the rest of the family

I know Creepy right ??? 

Use the edible ink markers to add the eyes and big smiles 

Roll some black paste to add papa's glasses. You can use the fondant extruder  or just roll the piece next to a wooden skewer so you can get a perfect rope 

We work some extra on the picnic scenery and you can do the same or adapt the family to your came theme. Have fun and include your kids so they can help you, my niece looove them and actually decided to keep them to play with them.  How cute is that!! 

Happy hand Modeling for all of you !!!!