I am doing a book cake tomorrow. it will be a closed book and I have looked in the galleries and found some wonderful pictures. My question is - how do i get the goldish look on the pages? The pictures that I have found have said that they used gold luster dust for the look. So I got some of that and now I don't know what to do. I have never really worked with luster dust before - how do apply it to the "pages" do I brush it on there dry or do i make it into a liquid somehow (and if so how do I do that)? Any help would be appreciated. thanks all

To make the luster dust liquid use a clear alcohol like vodka or the like it will evaporate and dry quickly. Then just paint your pages

Yes, dry brush it. Dip your brush in the pot, tap off as much as you can, then *lightly* brush it on the pages.
To mix it w/vodka, everclear, lemon extract or other alcohol would make it much more gold than I think you want.
The dust goes a lllooooooooonng way
Just be *sure* to get the lid back on tight. I don't kn ow how many have lost their dust because the lid wasn't tight

thank you so much guys, I appreciate it

I've got to do a closed book, too, for the first time...any tips on doing the fondant cover? It seems simple enough, but as we all know - what looks simple on cake isn't necessarily so!

yeah, that is what I am actually struggling with too. I have just now iced my cake and trying to figure out the best way to approach the cover haha

bump...

Okay, absijails - I finished my cake (I will post a pic when I get it off my camera) to make the cover, I measured out my cake basically twice (fondant to cover the bottom and the top of the cake) I put my thin layer of icing on my cake and I then attached my white fondant to the sides for the pages and made the lines for the pages. I rolled out the fondant and cut it to match my measurements. Then I lifter the cake (very carefully) and positioned on one end of the fondant with just a very little bit showing at the bottom for the lip of the cover, then I brought the other half of the fondant up over the side and smoothed over the top. If you need to trim anything do it now as the fondant will stiffin. It really was not as hard as I thought it would be. Whewww I am glad it is done now though

I am by no means an expert on this but if you have any questions feel free to ask

Thanks tdybear1978 for the instructions! I'm doing the cake on Friday night so I'll let you know how it goes!

I know a lot of people make the book cake the way that tdybear1978 explained, but I found it to be SOOOO hard!! Here's a link to a different thread where I shared my way of doing it that is so much easier and much less stressful!!!

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-587141.html