Ok, so I have seen lots of cakes on here that use either fondant or gumpaste rolled out into ropes, and then made into names and put on cakes. I am needing to do this for a cake this weekend and I'm wondering how you guys actually make the names look like names? I tried finding a font in my Microsoft word program but I'm not sure if I'm heading in the right direction or not .. do you just "eye" the name? If anyone can help me out here I would really appreciate it!!

I swear you were reading my mind...i've been wanting to know the same thing.

well maybe someone can help us out here ......

Personally - I just wing it. I've only done it on a few cakes, but I was going for a cutesie whimsical look so it was ok.

HTH!

Practice with a piece of yarn...that's what I did when I fell sway to popular crafts in the 80's. Someone decided to make nameplates with rolled dough, then shellacked (sp?)...and gosh! you weren't no one without either owning or making these!

Some of the loopy letters - G, Y may need to be creatively set, to avoid bulkage at intersections. Wish you luck!

Ditto on "winging it."

I lay the ropes out and begin playing around with the best looking lowercase "a" or "r", for instance, that won't look too mumbled or disarrayed. I might make an "h" or "k" 4 times before deciding on one I like.

The most difficult part is getting them to be the same height. I always start with a really long rope, form the letter, and then trim away.

Uaually I make each individual letter them stick them together rather than trying to make one long cursive word.

Ditto on winging it. Also I use Tappits whenever I can. I wish they came bigger.

thanks a lot guys .... I guess I will just have to practice practice practice .. my dh helped out last night, but I wasn't liking the end result so he isn't to happy about helping me out tonight so I guess I'm on my own ...

. . . don't know it this helps . . . http://www.emblibrary.com/EL/product.aspx?CatalogNavigationBreadCrumbs=Emblibrary;Alphabets&ShowTop=true . . . but there are lots of possibilities . . . and if you click on a style you like you can find the entire alphabet for that style letter by letter . . .

thank you, that is a nice site .. I guess my mind is not working 100% today .. I like several of the letter designs, but not sure how to actually use them to make my name out of fondant ... but they sure are cute!