I'm in the process of making gumpaste daisies for a fall wedding. So far I've made a burnt orange color and plan to make a golden yellow next. The flowers are pretty but they look a bit "flat" to me. I wanted to try to add some dimension to them so I bought pearl dust in ruby red & yellow to add to the tips of the petals. I've brushed it on dry and used it with a bit of vanilla extract. So far I'm not liking either effect. The dry doesn't add much at all and the wet added a nice color but it still looks shiny, which looks odd when the rest of the flower is matte.

I've also tried mixing a small amount of food coloring with vanilla extract but ended up with the same shiny look.

Any suggestions? Am I doing something wrong? Using the wrong product?

Thanks for any advice.

Kelly

I just made fall coloured daisies for a sheet cake and I painted the whole flower with americolor gel mixed with vodka. They had a small amount of shine when they dried but I also thought they looked flat before I painted them. Here's a link

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1493471&sub=1493473

Cherrycakes your flowers came out beautifully. So did you dye your gumpaste and then paint them with the same color? They definitely have a nice rich color to them. That's what I feel mine are lacking.

Thanks for your help. Its much appreciated.

Kelly

Thanks! Yes, for example, I used Golden Yellow for the flower and then used the same colour gel mixed with vodka. The colours are much more intense when they come straight from the bottle and it helps to deepen the colours of the gumpaste flowers.

Thank you! I'm going to give that a try this afternoon and see how it works. Stupid question but I assume you let them dry a bit before painting them, right?

Yes, I think mine dried overnight before I painted them. Good luck!

You can also color them with nontoxic artists chalk...either grate the chalk against a fine wire strainer or just scribble on a paper plate with it and then use a brush to pick up the dust. Once the flower is done, boil a pan of water and hold the flower in the steam for a few seconds to set the chalk. It will look shiny at first but will dry to a matte finish in a few days. It shouldn't be used on any edible pieces...but IMO, a gumpaste flower on a wire is not an edible piece.

The gel colors will usually leave a bit of shine on the gumpaste, even after a few days, but the more the color is diluted with vodka, the less shine it will leave.

Wilton dusts add some sparkle or shimmer, depending on whether they're added dry or wet. If you purchase petal dust somewhere, it adds color without shine or sparkle...but you can't buy it at the craft store, you'd have to order it online or get it from a cake decorating supply shop.

Here's some that I colored in different ways:

The peach one was a mix of wilton's yellow dust and a bit of rose petal gel color and vodka. The pink one was wilton's pink dust mixed with vodka. The orange/red one was painted with gel color mixed with vodka. They were all plain white to start with.

Here's one where I used chalk:

It was cream-colored chalk dusted in the centers of the roses and then just here and there on the outer petals.

wow Texas Rose those Roses are beautiful..

Texas Rose your flowers are beautiful!! Thanks for your help. I think petal dust is what I'm after. I found a cake decorating supply store about 40 minutes away. I'll be taking a trip there today to check out the different colors. I looked online but its so hard to get an impression of what the color might look like.

I don't mind the shine that you get from using the lustre dust dry but its not giving me enough color. The shine I didn't really like was from using the vodka or extracts. That shine just looked to harsh next to the dull flower.

Again, thanks to everyone for the help. I love this site!