hey guys! I have a 13th birthday cake for this Thursday and I made the numbers out of gumpaste. I rolled out the gumpaste and formed them so they can be free standing....but now that I did the 3 I'm not sure how to get it to stand up on the cake without falling over 
the #1 is easy enough cuz i can put a toothpick in it 
but the 3 has that rounded bottom and I can't just stick a toothpick in THAT 
you cannot put a toothpick on the rounded pieces why? I understand that the tooth pick will pop through the center of ...say.. an "O" or the bottom on a "J" but if you put them in at an angle, it will work...
here is a cake i did for my son.. i used toothpicks for all of the letters and numbers.... and it turned out great!
good luck!
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1573174
Hi!!
I did something similar when i made my betty boop cake, as i rolled out the fondant/gum trag very thin and cut her out to dry. However, when it came to standing her up all i did was roll a sausage of fondant/gum trag and insert a tall skewer in this. I proceeded to attach this to the back of betty with sugar glue and set it aside to dry. I pre-pierced the hole in the cake and then inserted it and she was very sturdy!! this is just a way i found that was effective and i would definately use again! HTH!
... oh and you can also use chocolate molds for yout letters and nombers too.. or if you dont have a mold, you can pipe the melted chocolate
( with a parchment piping bag ) onto a peice of parchment .. then when the chocolate is semi hardened , dip the toothpick in the chocolate to make it stick-lay it on top of the letter where you want it, then re-pipe over it once more to seal it in .. pop in the freezer for 5 minutes and you are done! if you do not want to preehand you can print or write out the text on a peice of paper and then then lay the parchment over the top and it will show through so you can trace it when you pipe it.
I did free hand chocolate piping script , as well at the flames.. (the script was to look sorta like rustic script ) on my Taylor Swift cake.. ( and i have also used mold in the past, as well )
here is a link to the pics of the cake, and you can see the chocolate script on one of the pics
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1740450&done=2
you cannot put a toothpick on the rounded pieces why? I understand that the tooth pick will pop through the center of ...say.. an "O" or the bottom on a "J" but if you put them in at an angle, it will work...
here is a cake i did for my son.. i used toothpicks for all of the letters and numbers.... and it turned out great!
good luck!
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1573174
WOW 
that cake is amazing! thanks!
but, my numbers aren't flat. I think at an angle might work...let me see if I can find an example
ok...so my numbers are just like the ones on top of this cake
http://blog.pinkcakebox.com/topsy-turvy-13th-birthday-cake-2009-04-17.htm
well, not as nice and fancy HOW did they get the 3 to stand up!? 
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