I'm sitting here patiently waiting for my craftsy tute to load.... slowly running out of time for this cake... I have my gum paste made, my cutters and molds and even petal dusts ready - just need the instruction. I'm starting to get nervous about running out of time to get them made - and made nicely. How huge is the learning curve? I think I'm going to avoid using wires this time - I saw a gorgeous hydrangea cake that had the individual flowerlets all over the top and partially down the sides of each tier and I think I'm going to go for that look - so that's one technique I won't have to worry about right now. As long as I can use royal icing for the centers since I've already colored all of the gumpaste purple.

They're fairly simple, right?

Oh - have you heard anything about a possible American Airlines strike? A friend left a msg that they're going on strike.... I hope not. That's the airlines I'm taking home on Friday - when I have to finish this cake. Of course.

http://petalsweet.blogspot.com/2010/01/hydrangea-tutorial-part-one-by.html

Here's a wonderful tutorial. I used it to make the hydrangeas in my profile picture. They're not hard, but they are time consuming.

I'm a gumpaste flower beginner too, and I haven't found hydrangeas to be very difficult. I think only my first couple were unusable, then I made 70 odd for a wedding cake and was happy with the way they looked.

The trickiest thing for me was the centers because they are so little and fiddly. The Craftsy course was really helpful in learning how to put the centers on the wires. Since you're just making the flowers off the wire, it should be a breeze.

I even make them with modeling chocolate. They are easy to make. and taste so good that way. hth

They are really easy to make but time consuming as mentioned earlier. Just remember that it take a LOT of them. When you think you have enough make 50% more.