I am kind of new at cake decorating. I have used fondant before and haven't really had a lot of trouble with it. I would like to try to use gum paste and I had read many times about people using a 50/50 fondant/gumpaste mix. How do you make that? Does the gumpaste dry faster and harder? Thanks for all the wonderful cake that give me so much inspiration.

Simply knead together two equal size blobs of already made gumpaste with fondant. You can make your own gumpaste or Wilton makes a good ready-made.

Adding gumpaste help your finished piece dry harder so you can make petals, bow loops, etc. thinner.

The fondant extends the length of time you can spend molding your pieces. Straight gumpaste dries so quickly that it may start to crack before you've finished making your item.

As you get more proficient, you can adjust the ratio of fondant to gumpaste.

I too mix equal parts of gumpaste and fondant. I buy gumpaste premade and just weigh out both on a kitchen scale.