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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

How To: Ruffle Flowers

I love ruffles!  Not on me... I bought a dress with some ruffles on it and was told by my husband that it wasn't me... but I LOVE them on cakes.  Maybe my love affair with them started with this cake... but then again I was putting some ruffles on some wedding dress cookies back in Dec of 2010... regardless... I LOVE THEM!!  

So a few weeks ago a got an email from a bride who was getting married on Sept 4th of this year and was wondering if I was available.  I already had a wedding cake for that weekend, a 2-tier birthday cake, and another cake for the day before, and really didn't want to stress myself out with another wedding cake for that weekend.  However, I thought about ICES convention and how much money I was probably going to spend, so I reconsidered and told her I was available.  And I was so happy I did!!  She told me that she had been stalking my website for a few months and was really excited for me to do my cake.  When she told me what she was interested in, I think I got really excited back!  Instead of using real flowers at her wedding, she was making fabric flowers and wanted some of these replicated on the cake.  She sent me some pics, and I was in love!!  So without further blabbering, here are the flowers...


So I set about my quest to replicate them as best as I could... and here is my tutorial on how I did them!

From a tool prospective... not too much is needed. Ball tool, circle cutters like the set here, foam pad, and a rolling pin.  Some extras you could use... dragees and/or edible pearls, some pearl luster dust, water pen, and  pump brush.  
 First up is the navy blue flower pictured above... in chartreuse.  I cut out a handful of circles in two different sizes, just for a variety, and let them start to dry a bit.  I wanted these to firm up a little as I was going to use them as my base.

Then I cut a lot more circles, in the next two larger sizes, and covered them with some plastic wrap so they wouldn't dry up.
 With each circle, I took the ball tool and thinned out the edges.  I wasn't concerned about how much or how little curl there was in each circle, just wanted the edges thinner than they were.













After thinning the edges, I picked up the circle and pinched it together in the center. I tried to vary the way I pinched them so I could get different ruffles looks on the flowers.

Once pinched, I placed them around the outside of the circle with a little water.  I kept adding the ruffled circles to the outside and then filled in the inside.  I fit them together and fluffed them as I added more ruffles.  I also made sure you couldn't see the circle base. 
And this is what they ended up looking like!  I think they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself!  After they dried, I ended up dusting them with some pearl luster dust to give them a little more dimension and attempt to make them look more like a satin fabric.
The other flowers (white ones from above), didn't turn out as well as I would have liked them to.  Not that I didn't like the way they turned out, but they didn't match as well as the other flowers did.  Again, I started out with circles.  This time, each circle was slightly smaller than the previous one.

I also used the ball tool to thin the edges again.  This time, I wanted to get some really ruffled, while others more wavy.  From there, I just stacked them on top of each other, securing each with a dab of water (final product below).

Now, if I really wanted to get them exactly like the pic the bride provided me, I would have need to make or buy formers in decreasing sizes (maybe 3-4 different sizes so that each circle would have dried in a concave lens shape and then stacked them the same way.

So here are the finished flowers on the cake.  As you can see, I added some sugar pearls and silver dragees to the centers of some of the flowers.  Hopefully you can also see a bit of the shimmer from the luster dust as well.  

In case you couldn't tell... I love these flowers.  I want to sit and make them all day, but alas I do need to take care of the kiddos and well there are those pesky orders I need to complete :)

3 comments:

  1. can u show us how u did the ruffles on the white cake on top?

    ReplyDelete
  2. They are SO gorgeous! I love them :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. The ruffles on the white cake are really easy. Just cut strips of fondant, slightly thin one side of the strip with your fingers, and wrap around the cake. Then pinch, pull and arrange the ruffles as you desire!

    ReplyDelete

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