I'm not very good at GP flowers and don't have any books for these two flowers, so I need to know...

For a huge Peony, camelia, or magnolia, are the petal on wires?

Does anyone have a little tutorial or a link or a starting point for these? I need to fiddle with them over this weekend.

Thanks so much!

Here is a bump-i would like to know this, too.

I don't have any links to free tutorials, but Nicholas Lodge has excellent DVDs very reasonably priced. He has one featuring a gardenia and peony and another with magnolia and bearded iris. Most large petals are individually wired, and the Celboard with the V slots on one side is very helpful in making wired petals and leaves. Global sells these DVDs as does ISAC (Nic's store).

Nick's DVDs are excellent for these flowers but if you have the International book of Sugarcraft, book 3, there is a tutorial on gumpaste peonies which is very helpful.

I know there are books and DVDs out there, but I was hoping to try these this weekend for a display next week.

Oh well. Guess I'll try making them "off the hip", or just use silk.

Thanks anyway

I found a link on Scott Clark Woolley's site that has 31 pages of in depth GP flower instructions that you can save or print, including Camelias, stargazer lilies, magnolias, and peonies, amoung many others. woo hoo

Here's the link.

http://www.cakesbydesign.cc./MetalCuttersAtoB.html

cheers

Wow, Chef_Stef ... thanks so much for that link. Great instructions and he even has pictures to show what they should look like. I will definitely be going back to that one!

Heh...I printed it out. Just in case the link is ever taken down. I put it all in protected sheets in the growing folder of recipes and the like that is rapidly becoming known in my kitchen as: The Book.

I bought Scott's peony cutters and followed his directions. It took forever but the flower is amazing! If you look in my pics, the green TT has a pink peony and the ivory tiered with a brown bow has maroon peonies on it.

I may get his cutters too. Your peonies are gorgeous. How did you get the deep colors? I tried to make a maroon peony, but unfortunately I started with burgundy coloring, which doesn't get deeper than dark raspberry...so I added some maroon but now it just looks muddy. Did you use straight maroon color, or something else?

http://www.wilton.com/technique/Peony

I hope this can help you, they are rally cute

I'm trying to remember how I came up with maroon actually. I'm pretty sure I took 50/50 red fondant and white gumpaste, then I added more red color and a little brown and purple color. It was a really flat color and more purply (is that a word ) than I wanted so once I let the petals dry for a day, I dusted them with a mixture of eggplant and brown petal dust and then claret wine and rouge luster dust, then I steamed them to set the color. If you steam them just a second, it will set the color, if you hold there for another few seconds, it will get shiny and it looks pretty cool but then it needs to dry again. For the pink one, I used 50/50 again and then red, pink and orange color and dusted with claret luster dust.

I would suggest ordering from Scott, not only does he tell you exactly what you need (wire gauge and color, stamens, veiners, etc) but if you have any questions, he's happy to answer them. You need two different size wires, white for the petals and then green for the center and then you need a ton of white stamens. He'll tell you exactly what you need and his cutters are really cheap and he ships the same day even when you pay by check like I did.

Good Luck, it's a time consuming flower to really do it right, but it's definitely worth every minute. It's such a beautiful flower.

Wow and thanks so much for the tips! I'll have to play with some colors, I can see...

Thanks again!