My moms 60th is coming up.  Opals are her favorite stone.  I’ve got some ideas in my head and no clue if it would work out.  My first idea was to do a marbalized fondant with very light pink, green, purple, and blue colors.  Then giving it a shiny/pearly coat.  Also came across this but have no clue how to do it.  Anyone have a tutorial? 

i haven't worked much with wafer paper or gelatin sheets but it looks like one or the other -- it seems so see through -- brush with pearlized opalescent colors -- someone will know so stay tuned -- 

but my thought would be to make little hard white candies with little blue green pink yellow, etc. colors maybe made with edible glitter flakes and lightly brushed with pearl over top -- random thought -- you could use baker's white chocolate to make the candies -- it's real white colored white chocolate -- oooh you could make some brooches! maybe

and you can make the flakes yourself -- buy a little bottle of gum arabic -- it's like a spice bottle of white powder -- from a cake store or online -- then you just use some colored water and mix in some gum arabic to make a paint and brush it on the outside of an upturned bowl -- but maybe parchment would work -- idk -- anyway brush it on something and let it dry and crackle it all up -- that way you don't have to buy edible glitter in all the different colors --

you could actually buy edible flake glitter made from gum arabic and use portions of that to re-wet with the colored water and make all your opal colors --

i love opals too -- it's the water content in there that makes the different colors show -- you probably already knew that but i think that's so cool -- like rainbows -- the only way to see the rainbow is to look through the rain --

also they have beautiful opalescent bags of colored sugar too in the cake stores -- would make a beautiful bottom board or some kind of decor -- love that stuff -- it's gorgeous -- might add to your whole effect --

just some opal thoughts for you

I think I would attempt to make an opal by getting opal colours marbelised in fondant then pouring a clear mirror glaze over the cake. I also think that they flowers above are made of gelatin (use the highest grade sheet gelatin for clear gelatin) which were then brushed down with a pearl shimmer perhaps?

Another option which might work better than marbelised fondant is to use poured fondant in several blue/green/purple shades then once that sets adding a clear mirror glaze. 

I have no thoughts beyond what has already been offered, but I, too, love opals and that cake is simply gorgeous!  I am going to have to learn how to make??? use??? gelatin sheets!

oh i just had a thought -- you could do brooches and jewelry with opals and use fondant swags where the brooches will go at the joins of the swags and you could brush the swags with edible glue of your choice and put the opalescent sugar on folds the swags -- it will bling the cake out -- then again putting that on the folds might be tacky but it's just a brainstorm type idea -- but brooches between swags is a solid idea 

are we doing a three tier? you can do minimal swags on the middle tier with the brooches -- a gorgeous necklace on the top tier hanging over the side y'know -- then this idea for bottom tier:

or if you do a dummy cake -- oh this would be killer! you could use a stencil and put the stencil on the cake and brush on some of the edible glue and then remove the stencil and apply the opalescent sugar -- probably a certain degree of difficulty there but wow that would be so cool--

or you could do -- have you seen those cakes  with all those strings going horizontally -- just tons of linear strings -- you could sugarfy the strings -- even just randomly --and you could have some color on there too under the sugar -- color the glue --so when it peek out it will take on the opalness --

or you could draw a pattern of some kind with the glue and sprinkle on the sugar --

the reason i like the sugar so much is opal is hard and the sugar is already there looking perfectly opal --

oh i can't wait -- this is so cool

You can buy gelatin sheets in most supermarkets now :-) 

I see the gelatin sheets on cooking shows all the time, but I've never seen them for sale around here.  I did make wings for my frog fairy out of gelatin, using a wire frame.  I am wondering if I could make the shapes shown in the picture by painting it onto a non stick surface, as Kate said.  This is so pretty.  What a shame so many decorating elements, while edible, taste awful!  I hate wafer paper - yuck!

If you spread it really thin it gives you an appearance like the flower above, you can cut it with scissors or a knife - use a hole punch to make sequins, make balls using water balloons as the 'mould' etc etc but yep it does taste pretty gross lol.

It can also be precoloured and you can add shimmer dust to the mix before pouring/setting it.

Thanks, bubs1stbirthday!  I'd really like to play around with it.

Have fun!

yay, bubs

I can’t wait for the day I have the skill level to even get excited like you ladies do lol.  I’m on the bus reading K8memphis response just cracking up because I picture all giddy coming up with more ideas!! My skill level is more toward the beginner side of things so I’m keeping it single tier.  Maybe a taller 6 or 8 in.  Not sure what route I will go but I LOVE all the ideas and am getting giddy about it myself

If I don’t do the fondant route would it work to do a Bc or smbc and smear in the colors all the way around?   I’m going to have to practice some stuff this weekend!

What about an opal ganache drip? Is that possible? 

I would avoid SMBC for this personally, it won't give you vibrant colours, it lends itself best to pastels.

As for ABC I am not sure as I rarely use it and have never tried to get a dark colour, I mainly use it for filling biscuits so no need to colour it, you could probably use an ABC made from shortening though which will give you a pure white base to colour.

Ganache might work depending on how dark you want it but white chocolate isn't really white, it's yellow so you don't get true colours even after adding white colouring.

I know you can get white candy melts though but again I don't use them so not sure how they taste or work in ganache or if the cream will taint it yellow anyway, you may be able to balance the yellow though with either a tiny bit of purple or a white food colour if it's only slightly cream.

If you colour ganache add the bulk of your colouring medium (gel/powder etc) to the cream before you heat it. I have had the best luck doing it that way as sometimes it can go a bit funny if you add lots of colouring after you make it, kind of spotty.

Personally I spend a fortune trial and erroring and really enjoy it so if you don't mind spending a bit of money I would just make up a small amount of each icing you are thinking of using and get practicing :-) Maybe just pour them over some biccies though or cupcakes rather tan either a whole cake.

..........If I don’t do the fondant route would it work to do a Bc or smbc and smear in the colors all the way around? ..............

That would be what I would do.