A

You're an interesting one.....not sure how those two comments compute!

It is very refreshing to see humility alive and well though, but it always seems to be those who don't need to be humble who are.....and then there those who have never heard of humility, they're the ones who DO need a great big slap with the humble stick.....but that's another thread entirely......

MB, you did a great job on your roses and leaves!  They really are pretty.  Next stop will be partially open roses and buds.  They will make any placement easier because they fill in little areas and give you diversity of shape.

I like your flower placement on your cake - it's different than what we usually see - creative! 

ASo long as those pipes are leaking alcohol.....

A

You know that you can double your prices with that label.....

I laughed at your loose connection comment.  I have made that comment my whole life concerning running.  My brain knows the concept of running and my feet know what to do but the connection between the feet and brain does not work properly and breaks down most of the time so it does not happen.

Unbelievable.  I just followed your link. ..................................and my kids reckon I'm wasting my time playing with icing.

A

Good lord...there was a guy who lived down the street from me when I lived in New Orleans who would go running wearing one of those tinfoil suits designed to make you sweat a lot of water weight out. He found out the hard way that strenuous exercise while wearing a tinfoil suit in the summer heat of NOLA isn't a good idea. I remember people having to pour water on him when he passed out in the street. I imagine duct tape pants would have the same effect.

AMaybe duct tape pants are just Spanx for people on a budget?

duct tape Spanx with Gorilla tape accents.  It's the height of fashion when playing with gumpaste and petal dusts.  No doubt I'd look so silly that someone will throw water on me if I were to try it!

This is the darkest green petal dust that I bought.  I put a bit more of the plum petal dust on the edges than I did yesterday.  They were steamed and that actually darkened them a tiny touch, and really emphasized the little creases in the leaf. What would be the darkest green, or would it be easier to add black?

AThey're looking great, I really love highlighting the edges of the leaves the way you've done here. I checked my dusts, my darkest green is a moss green, but I usually combine it with the aubergine to darken it. I have two aubergine dusts...one is much darker and more intense than the other (it's by Caroline's sugar art in South Australia, I don't know if she re-brands it and it's available elsewhere under another name), the other is more of a straight purple and not so good for leaves.

Often building up layers of colour helps. I think your leaves are looking mighty fine now though.

I can't remember, have you glazed them? I use a half strength glaze on the leaves and that seems to intensify their colour too.

Those leaves look great!!!!!

Glazing does deepen the color as winnimog stated.  I use it full strength.

I use multiple greens like fern, willow, pine.  a bit of yellow and kiko for my red highlights.  It varies depending on what I'm doing.

I also have a separate container where I dump all the extra green dust.  I have it marked MIX - my favorite of all the greens.

Glaze does keep for yonks MB.  My bottle is about 3 years old.

When I look at page #1 of this thread started on Sept. 07.......then look at these leaves today:

I can see that todays leaves look more like real leaves.    When I clicked onto page #1 and could see the original first attempt, and then the photo in the recent images in this thread on the right hand side of the same page to compare them.  The progress is evident.

And it's only taken two months, 18 pages of cc forum thread, and hundreds of post from people sharing their knowledge.  However this is as close to a classroom training program as I'll ever get. I'm grateful to you all!   Glad to hear that the glaze has a good long shelf life. I'll buy some.

I'd really truly deeply have to like someone to take my Galapagos turtle time to make them gumpaste sugar flowers for their cake.

A

I think I bought my glaze at the same time as [@]cazza1[/@], it's still fine. If it does look like it's becoming poisonous, I've always got my mother in law to test in on.....not even my kids will eat sugar leaves (although they ate their way through a bucket of dodgy frangipanis when I was struggling with them!).....but if it's made of sugar and stands still long enough, my mother in law will dispose of it!

This spray can of clear edible glaze looks pretty cool. However, This bottle must be the type of glaze that you guys are using. It sure would be easier and more consistent than my vodka/corn syrup mix.

http://www.sugardelites.com/Clear-Edible-Spray-Glaze-100-ML-PME_p_1669.html

http://www.sugardelites.com/Confectioners-Glaze_p_435.html

As per your request MB, here are the 110 frangipanis and the topper.  They will be a good one for you to try soon.

@cazza1 

All I can say is........WOW Those are great! and so many of them.  That topper that you made looks so real that I thought that you had put a branch from a real tree there for me to see the comparison. Then I read your post again and realized that you had made them. Those leaves that you made just blow me away, the coloring on them is really nice.   I'm so glad that you shared them in this thread.

I recently bought the frangipani (plumeria) cutters so I'll give it a go one of these days. A photo like this is a great source of inspiration.  You're cake is going to be spectacular.

MB I posted a picture of the cake in Friday night club.  It shows the topper much better.  The leaves are actually a bit too curly on the edges to look like real ones.  Real ones are actually quite flat and the ones in my garden have orangy brown veins but my attempts at adding them failed.  I did make a leaf veiner with silicone plastique from a real one but when I made them in icing the veins were not pronounced enough and I had to go back with a tool and accentuate them all.  It was a PITA.

A

Yes these are the right products. The bottle of glaze is great to paint with and you can use it at different strengths to give different levels of shine.

The glaze spray is brilliant if you have a lot to do, it's just quite expensive. Also I learned not to spray my leaves etc on a lovely wooden table where part of the wood was exposed. It now has a fairly unpleasant half-glazed appearance. It's quite ironic as it's the only present I've ever liked from my mother-in-law!

I actually hate the glaze in a spray.  I found it went on really uneven when I used it, thinking to save time as I had a pile of stuff to do.  I'd rather take the time and hand paint the glaze on.

AI found the spray glaze went on fairly evenly if I did multiple light coats from a bit of a distance (which is probably why I also glazed my table). It might be like an airbrush and spatter if you get too close? Also, I had the leaves on a horizontal surface so the glaze would set and not pool at one end of the leaf.

Some of the PME cans of colour spray I used before i had an airbrush also spattered/gave uneven coverage - perhaps some cans are faulty?

At a class with Alan Dunn, I learnt to use the spray glaze outside I have the stuff you paint on as well (can confirm it lasts for years, reckon I bought it c. 5 years ago) - but I found that as I painted, some of the colour came off the leaves, so haven't tried it since to be honest. And it didn't dry as shiny as the PME spray does. Yeah, it's expensive though.