How can I get a wood grain effect on fondant?

Here's a thread on the topic http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-513573-woodgrain.html

when i made wood grain for my guitar cake i just marbled two colors of brown together, a light and a dark until it looked like wood grain. i've also just painted some brown onto the fondant for a wood affect but i prefer the look of the two colors marbled together.

same here...i've marbled and i've also used vodka and brown color with a brush, or vanilla and brown color. i like the look of the painting.

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By marbled do you mean put the lighter color on first then add some of the darker color? What size brush do you use? Do you use white or brown fondant? Do you use regular Wilton colors?
So many questions! I am making a cake shaped like a baseball bat for my son's 10th b'day.
Thanks for ALL of the help!!

For the cake below (I haven't uploaded it to my album yet) I thinned brown with vodka and painted it on (to it was a lighter brown base.) I then dipped only the very end bristles of a wider brush into the brown color (undiluted) and brushed across it until I got the look I was going for. HTH

Do you have Elisa Strauss's book "Confetti Cakes"? She has a section on woodgraining on fondant in that.

You can also etch the grain into the fondant with a pointed end of a gumpaste flower tool or an imprssion mat. I etched the boards on my pirate ship and the impression mat on the treasure chest.

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granpam, good point on etching. i forgot to mention that i do that ! (when i paint with vodka and brown color)

for marbeling...you take two shades of fondant (brown/white...dark brown / light brown etc) and you roll a long "sausage" out of each color. twist them together like a rope. fold in half, twist and pull a few times until you get an exagerated marble look. keep in mind that when you flatten it to roll it out, the grain will widen. so, depending on the grain size that you want, will depend on how many sausages you roll out and twist together. you dont want to over mix/twist it because then it wont really look like woodgrain when you roll it out, it will just kind of look like a mess and not very distinct.

now, if you want to paint the bat, cover the cake in fondant (im assuming the cake is bat shaped? or is this a fondant accent to a cake?) you can use white, or light brown depending on the deep shade of brown you want. use brown gel/paste color and a few drops of PURE vanilla, orange, lemon or mint extract, vodka or everclear until you get a consistency that paints on semi transparent. what happens is,when you brush the color on the fondant, then backstroke again, it smudges the "paint" that has begun to dry (because of the alcohol content evaporating quickly) and gives a grain effect.

its quite cool actually. you can add knots and nail holes (though in this case you dont want planks or nail holes)....

have fun,post a pic when youre done!

I got a really cool wood grain effect on my Liberty Bell cake. At this point it's toward the top of page 2 in my pics. It looked better in person 'cause you could see more of the grain.

Anyway, what I did was to make my wood chunk (styrofoam) and cover it with brown fondant. Then I made random markings in the brown fondant with a toothpick. Then I put some brown paste coloring in my hands, rubbed them together, and then rubbed it on the fondant. It was fast and easy and the coloring washed off my hands really easy.

Melysa thanks for explaining marbling, I hadn't thought about mixing 2 colors of fondant.
It is going to be a baseball bat shaped cake. So I will have to roll out a pretty long narrow piece of fondant.
I am going to practice the wood grain this weekend. I will try all these suggestions and see what works best for me!
Thank you , thank you, thank you all!

I just put on a layer of brown, let it sit for a minute or so and then I wipe it with my finger and the paint on one more layer of brown. I also hit my fondant with a knife. hth