What method of transferring the design onto your fondant / gumpaste (etc) for RI or buttercream brush embroidery do you do:
A) the RI method (tube 1) on clear sheet...flip and press into the fondant?
or
B) scribing the paper traced design up against the fondant
or
C) first onto parchment tracing design in piping gel and then pressing that again the fondant
or
D) something completely different

If you do "B" what scriber do you use? Making do with what you have as gumpaste tools or going the 'hard ware store route' or 'art dept route'?
TIA

I've never transferred brushed embroidery. I've always done it straight on the cake. There's a picture of one in my photos (yellow). It was a covered in buttercream (crusted and refrigerated for extra firmness), and then I piped on the buttercream borders and brushed.

I'd be interested in knowing if there was anyone who did this by transferring! Never heard of that!

B and I have a scriber. You can also use cutters pressed into the fondant.

Duh...blonde moment! Now I get what you were saying. How do you transfer the image you want to brush! lol Sorry! I usually do mine free hand or with some time of cutter to make an impression.

Just do it right on the cake. Be sure to get your brush really wet first.

Cutters are great. If you cannot find a cutter in the design you want, trace the design on a paper and you can pin prick it on the fondant then outline with icing.

And free hand. A lot easier then you think.

Yeah, I never heard of the transferring either. I would thing that would be very difficult.

just a free hand or a cutter sometimes, but I usually just start drawing.

Toba Garrett also suggests tracing the back of the image with a #2 graphite pencil, placing the pencil side against the cake and going over it w/ a pencil or scriber so the pencil print is left on the fondant. I read it a few times, figuring I must be misunderstanding that she has pencil transferred to the cake, but that is what it says. Toba is and expert, but I still am left wondering if this is actually safe.

The extremely small amounts of graphite aren't going to hurt anyone. That being said, I'm not going to go snack on a pencil or anything.

yeah I knew about the pencil idea...its an old one but a little too wild for me. Hey honey whatcha doin? Oh I'm just snackin on a pencil.

Theres another method where you pin prick your stencil or outline through your wax or parchment paper.

The transfer method that I mentioned is literally taking a RI piping turning it over and pressing it onto the fondant. But I only seeing this working on a straight surface since obviously it would crack and break on a rounded one. I guess the advantage of this is that you would have a perfect indentation over and over again and possibly could store it away for a later 'impressioning.'

Here is an interesting tutorial on do-it-yourself impression mats. I know you can buy non-toxic "puff" paint, although it's probably not technically food safe.

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/568298013CdussY

Cool thats like the RI one but with puff paint. Neat! I looked at her other tutorials! Good grief they are cool too. Airbrushing plaid, puff border for cake platform.....awesome!

all - if you visit that last site be careful not to click a small popup system page that says something failed and wants you to click "ok" DONT do it. Its a virus and a bad one. I'm writing this on a different computer b/c the one that I did that (dumb move) is hosed right now and had to take it off our network.