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 !!!!