Hi ! I have been requested to do a 3d FAMILY TREE, I am building it out of wire and it will be attached to a wood board. I am also making a branch for each family and my idea was to have their names on the leaves⦠this tree is going to travel in the back of my truck to Ohio ... ( I am in Nashville) I need ideas on how to attach the leavesâ¦. I can either wait until I get there to do it but I will only have about 3 hrs, or I can do it here but in such way they will not fall out of the tree while traveling⦠attached is a picture of the work in progress tree⦠just so you have an idea⦠it is about 3 feet tall and it will be covered in fondant.
Thank you!!!

Glue the leaves onto the fondant of the tree with some meringue powder mixed with water, or with some gumtex mixed with water.

I made a tree recently and that's how I stuck the leaves on.

If you're going to put the whole thing in the back of a pickup truck, you'll need to put it in a good strong box to protect it from the wind. You can always cut the sides of the box open when you arrive, so you can get the tree out easily.

I recently did a family tree for grandma's 90th b-day. I used a PVC pipe attached to a board with the phlange (sp?). It was VERY solid. I stuck a styrofoam ball in the top and covered in choc fondant. I took those ivy vines and cut one for each "branch" of the family and wrote a name on each leaf in metallic gold paint marker.

I put the cake around the base of the tree trunk and iced in buttercream and airbrushed. DH put the finishing touches of the roots around the base.

When I got to the hall (I had to travel 2 hours) I just stuck the branches into the styrofoam ball on top.

There is a picture in my photos.
Barb

barbaranoel has the right idea...pvc pipe sticking out of a flange attached to a piece of hard board.

Stand a bunch of stiff brown-paper/tape covered florist wires in the pvc so that it takes up half of the opening. Pull them out, lay them in a row, fold in half, twist a couple times so a small loop remains at the folded end. Hold this (loop pointing down) next to the outside of the pvc opening so the loop is 1" below the opening. Poke a pencil through the loop and mark the pvc. Drill a hole into the pvc right through the other side and remove bit. Stick the wire loop in the top of the pvc and down 1" until you see the loop's opening. Insert a bolt through both sides and tighten on a nut. This should keep the bunch of wire from moving up or down. If not, add some hot glue in the hole. Now cover the pvc with fondant, pretending the bolt and nut lump is a knot in the tree. Bend the end of each branch into a small open hook to hang your hardened gumpaste or fondant leaves from, after you write all the names on them.

Adding cake to this? Put the cake on a cake cardboard the same size as the cake, cut in half, cut a rounded notch out of one side of each half, push the 2 halves together, fitting the pvc into the notch on each half. Ice the cake. Bend the branches in all directions like a real tree. When you get to the hall all you have to do is hang the leaf names on each hook. If you need extra leaves, make extra fondant/gumpaste ones and glue them to the branches using Royal?

This worked fine for my family tree, hope it works for you too!

Thank you for all your ideas I will post pics of the tree once is done. and if you think of more let me know I appreciate all of them.

Hi !

It has been a while but I wanted to vent a little... I was very excited with this project but it was so much harder than what I expected...

The family tree was done and it was not as cool as I thought it was going to be... several issues, it was very hard to keep the leaves attached to the structure of the tree, I used gumtex mix with water and it was fine at my house but the ride to Ohio was too long ... so I had to make little cupcakes with the names... then the cake which was the base of the tree (it was a hill with a fence around) was also destroyed during the trip... I do not have a picture of the cake before all this only as a work in progress first picture) so at the end my super project was no so super... below are 2 pics the first of the tree with the cake and buttercream (before I covered in fondant ) and the second one of what it look when I took it to the reunion . very sad