I have a cherry blossom wedding cake due this Satruday and I've made the flowers already in white. Bride then tells me she wants them all "red"...well, her wedding color is wine/claret/crimson...basically a burgundy. I went to the cake store and all she had was claret (wine) luster dust...no petal dust. So, I painted a few of them with the luster dust and It is the right color but...the shiny is not setting right with me.

I know it matches her bridal party gowns exactly because they have a sheen to them too....do you all think these flowers will look okay or do you think they will look tacky...I just am not sure. One minute I like them, the next minute I am just not sure and then the next I just don't care.
Because I didn't even get a color from the bride..luckily my sister is attending the wedding and had a swatch of the dress colors...this bride didn't even care, I don't think.

Sorry this is so long winded, thanks for reading this far and any advice would be appreciated.

Have you considered maybe just dusting the edges of the flowers with the dust, rather than full-on painting them? Or does the bride was fully-colored flowers? I'm sure it will look nice, but it's really hard to weigh-in without seeing what they look like.

Yes, my initial plan was to just dust the edges but she then wanted them all red. When I get home tonight I will take a picture of the ones I have dusted and let you all weigh in then!!

There's the dipping method too. Where you can dip nice dry gum paste flowers in alcohol like everclear or clear vodka tinted with food color. Have a hair dryer handy to blow them dry so no issues arise from the moisture. It's quick, easy, fun and sure fire. Y'know like use scraps to get your colors right y'know test first.

Some colorful thoughts for you.

Thanks!!! I may do that too...I am running out of time and freakiing out!

Or what happens if you pearl dust them after you luster them? It would dampen the color prolly. Or what happens if you dust them with cornstarch after the luster. Or what happens if you mix cornstarch with the luster--I mean diddle around with your test pieces and see if that might not work--You might wanna steam it in between treatments??? I don't know I'm just tossing out ideas, Cocoa? Cocoa plus cornstarch?? What other powdered colors you got that you could de-luster them with? You could paint them too if you didn't wanna dip them.

It ate my response. If you mix p-e-a-r-l dust and petal dust you get the l-u-s-t-e-r dust. So see if plain white p-e-a-r-l dusting them again will help--it will lighten the color a lot though. Maybe try cornstarch or cocoa or something--I don't know if that will work. You could paint them too.

I've heard of holding a gumpaste flower over steam for a few seconds to add shine. It might be worth trying with one to see what happens. I've never tried it myself, so I don't know how well it works.

You can use the food laquer, or if no time, apply a bit of crisco to the petals...learned that from Nicholas Lodge's class.

Okay all

Here is a picture of what the flowers look like painted in the luster dust. I was wondering weather the shinyness of them looked right or not...the more I looked at them today...the more I am starting to like them...I'm thinking of making the centers pearl white too...to tie it together some more.

Basically, because this was thrown at you last minute and you really have not had a visual consult from the bride, just do your best. It will be lovely.

Yay!! I talked to the bride and sent her this picture and she LOVES the flowers!!!!! I can rest easy now and get these darned things done already...I mean the wedding is Saturday!!! Yikes!!

For anyone that is interested I finished that cake today and it's in my photos, I think it ended up looking pretty good. Can't wait to hear from my sister on what everyone else thought about it!!

It turned out beautiful! Great job.

definitely the right choice!
Jen...