I have finished all of the Wilton classes (have to make up 2) and now I want to start working on fondat/gumpaste flowers. I was not very successful with buttercream/royal icing flowers

I really only know how to do the rose and carnation. What are some of your favorites and if you dont mind can you post pictures. I am going to have to buy cutter for these and they arent cheap so I would like to start with just focusing on a few.

Thanks in advance.

Here are some flowers I made with the wilton cutters...the hibiscus were made with the 5 petal rose cutter, cut between the petals, vein petals, thin and frill the edges and set into an egg tray (or flower former) to dry, then I added a long tube for a center, with a little sun-shape (if you can't find a sun hole punch, you can make a little ball and snip it with scissors) and then a dot on the end of that. The leaves were made with a scalloped heart cutter, my favorite for making leaves.


And I made these with a Jem 5 petal rose cutter (much better than the Wilton because it cuts between the petals).


There is a tutorial on flickr to make the big roses http://www.flickr.com/photos/franjmc/2927935625/ you have to scroll down a ways to see the link.

Thank you those are great. I have the Jem rose cutter, I did buy that one but my roses do not look nearly that nice. If you look in my photos you will see a cake I did with the roses. I think my roses are too stiff and closed so I need to work on that.

Try Francesca's tutorial...she shows exactly how to make the roses look open. Also, it helps to use gumpaste instead of fondant, it behaves a bit differently and makes it a lot easier to get the shape. She uses styrofoam eggs as flower centers, but I'm too cheap to do that so I've just been using gumpaste as the centers.

I will watch that tutorial. I use styro eggs for centers but I bought a big pack for 12 or so and they were like $3 and I just cut them down with a knife it was easy.

Oh... I used half gumpaste and fondant. I will try just gumpaste. How does that make a difference in the way they look/handle. Are they more fragile do they look more realistic?

Judi (aka Texas_Rose) did an AMAZIIIIIIIIING job on those roses. One of the best roses I've seen.

I use 50/50 - Wilton Gumpaste and Wilton Fondant and never have any problems with my roses or flowers.

using straight g/p for flowers.. makes them look more realistic.. you can thin the petals better..