Hey all. I'm REALLY hoping you can help me...and QUICK. I need to make a willow tree to go along with a medieval fantasy theme cake I'm doing. But I am lost as to how I'm going to make this tree. I have to actually make about 3 or 4 of them, and they only need to be MAYBE 3" high at the most...prob closer to 2" - 2 1/2". But I have no clue as to how I'm going to do this and make the branches work without making THOUSANDS of little individual leaves. Any ideas are GREATLY appreciated. Thanks all.

Yes, I have the answer for you. Take lots of cloth covered cake decorator wires (used for gumpaste flowers) and cut to length (willow tree trunk and weeping willow part) cover half the wire in brown florist tape. When you have a large grouping of them put them together to form a trunk and wind more brown florist wire around the grouping. Now arrange the brown top branches in a downward cascade and there's your main form. If you need to place mini leaves on them - cut out little leaves and thread them onto the florist taped weeping vines and your done. Good to make the trunk a bit longer to insert into the cake or into a straw placed into the cake to insert the trunk into.

Thanks! That helps a ton! Now I just gotta go to the store to get the wire and florist tape... Thanks so much for your help.

You're so welcome. Get cloth covered wire and the florist tape will stick better. Oh and divide the florist tape in two - in other words cut it right down the middle to make it skinnier and then wrap the wire. And if you want to get extra fussy, take each wrapped wire - lay it down on the counter and run something round over it - the side of a pen or a small gumpaste rolling pin. This is called burnishing it. Several passes over the covered wire will make the brown florist tape blend in and will remove the overlapping lines of the wrap.

Thanks for that last tip DeniseNH! I can't wait to try that.