I need to make a wedding dress on a dress form for a cake topper. I made one of these once before, but it was so long ago I don't remember what I did. (I don't get the opportunity to make many cakes.) (The other one I made was marshmallow fondant, I'm using gumpaste this time.)

I'm using a Wilton doll pick, with the head and arms removed. Covered that in black fondant, which is now hard and dry. I attached the gumpaste bodice on the form. Now I am trying to get the skirt on but the gumpaste is ripping terribly.

I need help PLEASE!!!

How do you attach the skirt? Do you roll the gumpaste into a circle, cut a hole in the center, then lay over the top? Or, do you roll a long sheet and wrap it around? There would be a seam then.

Oh, I am using the Nic Lodge gumpaste recipe. It seems really dry though. I've only worked with gumpaste once, 6 months ago. I don't have any more tylose, so I cannot make another batch. There is nowhere locally to purchase and I don't have time to order. (This needs to be done by Thursday evening.)

I'm getting so frustrated and exhausted.

Thank you so much for any guidance you can offer.

Try mixing your gumpaste with fondant, this will make it a bit more pliable and less likely to dry out too quickly.

I might try cutting a shape which is like a cone with a curved bottom edge and the pointy top cut off, then the short end (where the point would have been) gets wrapped around her waist. Does that make any sense? You may need to experiment with it but if you're quick you can always re-knead your gumpaste/fondant and use it again.

HTH
Emma

I read on the last one you used a heating core, which is a cool idea....but. Is there a reason you aren't using a mini doll cake pan and using either cake or rice crispy treats as the base? Then you can just frost it lay the fondant or gp over it and stick the doll pick in it. I don't know maybe I'm not understanding correctly. The one in your pics is really pretty.

Maybe the mini doll cake pan is too wide? What about a styrofoam ball on a skewer? I don't know...Im sure it will turn out great. Please post a pic when your done.

sugarandslice, I will try that. Thank you for the idea!

tinygoose, Thanks for replying! I'm using a styrofoam cone this time. The heating core made it too short and I wanted it to be an inch taller this time, due to the dress design (plus I don't want to give away my heating core). I don't want to make it from cake because I don't really care for the look (the skirts are too roundish), but most importantly, the bride may want to save this for a while and since it's just gumpaste, she can. We saved the other one for a while (about 6 months), but it was made out of marshmallow fondant and it turned yellow so we threw it out.

I'll try again tonight.

Aaahhh! I'm just having the worst trouble with this thing. I feel like I want to throw it away. Guess I'm just having one of those weeks. Everything I have done for this bridal shower gets messed up the first time and I have to redo it.

So, I realized that I needed to NOT cut a hole in the middle of the fondant. I finally remembered that the last time I made the dress, I laid the fondant circle over the heating core, then poked the doll pick into it. Tried that but the waist area was looking funny. Then I realized that I cut the foam cone the wrong way! (It was too tall.) I should have cut it from the bottom, but I cut if from the top, then made the space between the bottom of the doll pick too wide, so that made the dress have a shelf-shape waist. So I'm mad that I wasted $4! I went back to using the heating core. Hopefully in a month it will dry enough and she can send it back to me!

Here's where I am really upset though. When I took the pick off the foam cone and put it on the heating core, some of the bottom of the bodice cracked off bit. I decided to not make a new bodice because I needed to make the waistband beaded. So I covered it with a belt of the gumpaste, which hid the problem very nicely. Unfortunately, it is way too wide, but I didn't realize that until after I spent almost 2 hours encrusting it with tiny dragees and sugar crystals. Here's the worst of it though. After doing all of that, I need to add the detail to the train area (which is too short). I could not tell from my printout what it was supposed to look like, so I checked again on the computer. When I zoomed in I saw that the train detail and the waistband are not bead & crystal encrusted, but embroidered!!! I can't get the sugar/dragees off now and I have no clue how to mimic the embroidery anyway.

So now I have changed the design of my friend's wedding gown! My daughter also said that the bodice looks like a mummy (it's supposed to be ruching) I cannot believe how terrible this looks and I do not have time to make a new one!

Thanks for letting me cry here!

Here is what I was trying to make (you can see the front of dress lower down on that page), and below is the horrible thing I created. I wish I had done this 2 weeks earlier so I could have redone it. No more procrastinating for me!!

All I could think when I saw this was, "Holy crow. That's gorgeous." Hang in there. The world is a little off kilter this week. I am convinced.

Thanks. I know it is so silly, but when I get an idea in my head of how something should turn out, then it doesn't, it just makes me feel like a failure. Unfortunately, I have that perfectionist type personality. I haven't been feeling well for a long time now either, and I am not easily able to do the things I used to. It's just getting frustrating.

I sent the picture to the hostess and she thought it was great and said my friend will like it. I fixed a bit of the waist area and now I'm going to just back away from it.

Thanks again for letting me grump around here for a bit! It sure helps.