I'm doing a birthday cake for a 3yo girl next week. Mom wants butterflies both on the cake and"floating" above/around it. The pic she sent me has some really cool ones on it- its very obvious the designer didn't use standard cutters-they are pretty intricate! ...any suggestions on how to do them?? TIA!![/code]

there are many ways to create b'flies. Cutters, free hand, gumpaste, wafer paper, and molds.
W/o seeing the pix you are referring to it's had to suggest alternate methods. IMHO wafer paper is the esiest method.

I did a sweet 16 butterfly cake with butterflies around the cake. I used a butterfly cutter from karen's cookies and just did some extra detail on them. the cake is in my pics if you'd like to take a look

First Impression Silicone Molds. Love them!

just a quick thought... using butterfly molds and gelatin... you can make them thin... then brush the gelatin butterflies very lightly with luster dust and they will kind of sparkle... its very pretty... I don't have a picture though (sorry)...

Ive recently bought some butterfly plunger cutters. I used them to decorate some cupcakes, they add the veins of the butterflies, the n i lustre dusted them to make them look sparkly. As for 'making them float' what about the wire sparklers with buttlerflies on thre end. Without seein the picture your aiming for its hard to recommend ideas.
My butterfly cupcakes are on my page
Hope this helps
claire xx

i had found a website where she shows how to make lace butterflies but of course i can't remember the name of the website But what she did was just use a simple butterfly cookie cutter and then use pastry tips to cut out designs in the wings then placed the butterfly in a piece of card stock folded then placed the paper in the flower former. I hope that makes sense.

I saw a picture of a cake yesterday of butterflies goin along a cake to a launch, lookin like they gna fly!! They were put on cake wire an stuck down into the cake an lifted higher, as they were taking off .

For the flying part, Duff makes these wires that you can stick in a cake and attach things to them, they will kind of look like a baby mobile.