This is the info I have in my files. I'll contact Donna and see what's up.

Chesterton Cake Boutique
139 South Calumet
Chesterton, In. 46304
(219) 921-1414

cakepro....this "fishtail" that you mention would be so interesting to see as I too am busy making roses for a wedding this coming weekend. I am also putting all my roses onto toothpicks, thought this would be easier to have the roses cascading at an angle down a 3tier wedding cake. So, I will be waiting with baited breath to see what you are talking about.

I do my roses on plastic drink stirs, they're longer than toothpicks and you can cut them to the length that you want to keep them on the cake securely. (Someone else mentioned this in a post earlier in this thread, but I wanted to mention it again.)

Sticking the wires into coctail straws is a great idea! I just made my first gum paste roses on wires and have been going nuts trying to figure out the best way to attach them. Thanks!

Question: If you do roses on toothpicks or drink straws, how do you hang them upside down at the end?

I don't use flower formers.

I hang mine upside down by sticking them in the bottom of a piece of styrofoam that is sitting on a coffee can or something. No propping of petals necessary.

I will make the fishtail and take pics in a while. I had my niece over unexpectedly yesterday and couldn't do the fishtail pictorial.

Thanks Bobwonderbuns (there's a sentence you never imagine you'll say) and Cakepro!

That's what I love about this site; so many smart people willing to share their experience with others. And so many good ideas to try to see what works best for me. Thanks.

ha ha ha! It seems me and Cakepro do the rose thing differently. Oh well, in light of that I suggest trying it both ways and doing whatever works best for you!

I read the whole thread and i appologize if this has been mentioned and i missed it... but to the OP:

Start at the bottom and work your way up. You can "build" the flowers up the cake and then you dont get drooping flowers that have no support underneath.

And i love the idea of making them right on the toothpick... i have never thought of that!

These tips all make sense now, I feel so dumb! I guess that was the very first cake that I put gum paste flowers on and it was 3 am also!! I always seem to get called in to work at the hospital whenever I have a cake that I want really nice!!

Okay....the fishtail mini-tutorial.

First, you make a rose cone just as you would for any other rose.

Then, you pinch the top on the left side and the right side, so you have two side-by-side flattened areas.

Then, you pinch each side out a little bit more so that the top edge is pretty thin.

Here's a side view for you.

Wet one side with some gum glue and curl it toward the center. It doesn't matter which side...I just happen to do the one on my left first.

Wet the other side with some gum glue and curl it toward the center, in front of the other.

Upclose view. It doesn't have to be pretty where the bottom of the fishtails glue onto the base, because that's going to be covered.

Well, I was going to stop there, but didn't want you to think that it would look ugly, so I finished the rose.

Using a 5-petal cutter (in this case, I used the JEM Easy Rose Cutter), I layered on 3 not-too-tightly-wound petals. I just pull off the 2 petals I don't need and save them for the last row (you'll see what I mean).

Now I put on six more petals (one of the 5-petal cutouts plus one leftover petal from the previous step). I used a toothpick to roll back the edges to give the 3 outer petals some realism. For this quickie tutorial, I did not vein any of the petals, but normally I would, using the First Impressions Molds Rose Floramat. It works well with the medium-sized JEM rose cutters and FMM rose cutters.

Now I have applied 5 more petals and stuck the rose upside-down in the styrofoam to dry. While it's drying for a few minutes, I took one more 5-petal cutout, cut each petal out, thinned them, rolled the edged back with toothpicks, and set them in plastic spoons to set up a bit. This is how I do my outer-most row of petals.

Incidentally, I used the hot-wire technique to put a wire in my rose cone in order to be able to show you all of the steps of the rose to completion. I never would have been able to handle the rose without a wire in it, so I took a 16g piece of floral wire, bent one end into a shepherd's crook, and heated it up in the flame from my stove until it was red hot. Then I stuck it in the base of the rose cone. The sugar in the gumpaste instantly caramelizes around the wire, and voila! You can use your fresh, soft rose cone instantly without waiting for it to dry!

Okay, the rose hung upside-down for about 5 minutes, which was long enough for the petals to set nicely for their photo.

And now I have applied those 5 last petals that were waiting patiently in their plastic spoons. It had to hang upside-down for several minutes to set up before its picture was taken.

And now our completed rose will hang out with some I already did, waiting for a calyx and petal dust to help give it even more realism and depth with some beautiful color. Some dust their flowers with petal dusts while the paste is not dry, but I prefer to do mine when they are fully dry. Maybe tomorrow...I'm going to bed now.

I hope this has helped someone with a fun new little shortcut.

I dont like sprays..they are too heavy.. I prefer to put each flower by itself..

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1299243

Even the big flowers are done by themselves.. And this cake is buttercream. I just put a little
buttercream behind the flower so it holds/
Edna

That's so awesome!! Thank you for the tutorial, your roses are beautiful!

That would work good for me, cause I sometimes can't get the first two petals tight enough and you can see the tip of the cone in the middle.

Cakepro, I have a quick question. For the last set of petals you had seperated each of them, and in the first row you removed 2 petals. So, the 3 petal first row and the 5 etals on the second row the petals remained connected, right?

Hope that makes since, it's 1:20 AM.

Thanks a bunch!