Lessons

Lesson Info

Basic Flowers Part 2

Let's go ahead and work on a daisy ok? And the first thing I'm going to do for my daisy is we're going to make the center a lot of times that's what we do first is we make the center so let's make the center and I'm going to make my center out of lime green because when I go to color that line green has a really good look at the end okay? And centers are one of those things that you can do ahead of time way ahead of time keep him in a little plastic, bigger plastic container once her dry and just move forward with him how you guys do and I see you've got your flower made and now you have no place to put it let me take my students my students need something from me you walk, they're over there working so quietly and so nicely not having all their things those air looking nice by the way you guys did a good job on him you like him? They're fun, I think and I think I miss it. How long do they take to like harden drying? These will be good and hard by easily tomorrow morning they may be st...

rong enough by the time we leave this afternoon that they'll be okay they're kind of at that delicate stage right now where they're not quite firm enough but still firm enough that you could damage right? Thank you okay, so for my centers I'm going to use the lime green for the daisies and have a sharp object just little just little dots and you'll notice I rolled out the sausage so I can cut them get them all about the same size again I'm going to show you one way to do it they have forms they have molds for centers of daisies you can buy some really nice high end um formers and they make really nice centers for gerber daisies and day all kinds of all kinds of daisy centers they have a set of cutters that you can roll it out and then just cut your sinners but those are all nice things and like I said yesterday I said I started doing this long before we had all the cutters in the tools we had to do everything by hand nothing wass we didn't have a cover so even our even our rose petals were all created by hand and there are tools that I like and there are tools that you're like, you know what? I can still do this the old fashioned way this happens to be one of them although I do like my daisy formers or my center former okay, so I'm gonna roll little balls if they're the same size that's awesome if they're not well we addressed we move forward everything in life is not the same size the one thing about the gum paste flowers on the gum paste figures they could be so lifelike and natural looking and yet you can also make it cartoonish in childlike and these khun still be awesome so it's just some of those things that you can have fun with you could also make your crew itself crazy trying to make everything perfect I did mention that I used to be a perfectionist I'm trying real hard not to do that anymore to myself for to my family and friends rolling little balls here we are this is also like watching paint dry like I said a lot of this is the kind of stuff that you do while you're on your own this when my children were younger I had my work table set up in the family room behind the couch so while the kids and the family were in the family room watching tv I would be at my table behind the couch working on my gum paste flowers because I guess I'm a taipei I don't sit very well and just watch tv so I could still be there be a part of the family but I was also still accomplishing something you know said taipei okay so now this is where I get my little stranger my little mish so whatever you have you can use I'm just going toe precedent so it has a little in dent on one side which you probably can't see it's there though and when we dusted you will see it and those can just kind of sit up and get harder and it's ok by me so michaela two thousand thirteen ass I noticed that the student's phone boards look like cut phone do you have a professional piece of foam like yours or can use any kind of thick foam that you can clean any kind of thick firm phone that you can clean and the students are actually cut kickboard that I got on sale at the end of summer one year and when I do is much teaching as I do and I'm trying to get students who are often on limited incomes I provide this and they gives him something to work with without having to spend hordes of money to get going ok so I've got all my little centers press they can just sit right there and dry dry dry if they're rock hard that's fine if they're soft will work with it ok and you know what I am going to do my daisies rather than white I'm going to do them I've got almost the same oranges your shirt it's a good color almost sure has got a little more ready cheese graters you know that little roughage on a cheese grater that works for making centers, giving your center some texture and interest my orange is still just a touch soft so I'll add cem corn starch just a little bit I don't want to dry it so cracks and breaks apart okay got it flattened out go back to my one setting I'm making my students rollers out with a little rolling pin in a little space our students this last two days have been awesome they're so good they're such troopers they have kept it up they've asked great questions and they've created some wonderful things so if I didn't get to tell you beforehand you guys have done awesome thank you. Ok, so I've got a nice bright orange now then to create my daisy I'll use um I think I used this cutter I'm going to use this little five pedal cutter going to get a little corn starch on it so it doesn't stick and one of the tricks that I want to show you is to get a clean cut if you run your finger along that edge, which plastic is not so bad, you get a good steel cutter and you might be running more than just your finger weii popped out before it let me finish wade doing here you guys have a good cutter? Yeah, yeah okay, I'm going to pick up another one and see what that one does it sticks out a get my little boehner tool out, pick it out picked it out and popped right back in that was good. Okay, we know that okay again we're going to take that pace that's left over we're going to really need it really quick. Oh, I'm gonna make my roses out of orange to boy and make everything all the same color great maybe all roll out of touch your white too always gonna need it before you get it workable get it to the right stage I want to put these under wrap so that they don't go crazy on me up to five my machine goes up to six but I'm not taking actually my machine goes up two seven but I'm not taking it that thin and get some little green christie's there are orange christie's ok, so I've got some orange and white daisies there we go daisies you can do just about any kweller if you make a more engine put in a brown center than you've made a brown eyed susan, right? So a lot of times your flowers or just a matter of how many petals what colors justice center looked like and that gives you a flower okay, now then here's how we're going to turn this five petaled cutter or into a daisy I'm going to take a couple of them out and I'm going to take you can take your exacto knife or you can take a little sharp cutter you wanted to be a sharp cutter I haven't exacto knife I have no idea where it put it someplace safe sold issues my little shirt um special or palette knife and I'm just going to cut each of those pedals into either third or fourth doesn't matter because daisy's have lots of petals you can try to take it all the way down to the center but I can tell you that if you do you're going to end up losing a few of them so just take it almost to the center but not quite can you see how can you see that yeah so this is kind of um a pain but if you don't have a big set of fancy daisy cutters it worked pretty good and like I stated yesterday before I start having you guys go out and buy hordes of stuff I want you to decide if you're going to enjoy this or not or if this is something that it's not that good for you or I don't know what part of the country or the world jury and it's possible you can't you don't even have access to some of these things ok so I've got two of them ready to go I'm gonna put that on my phone pad and then I'm going to take my vein or tool and I'm going to use the fatter end of it as opposed to the skinnier in because that's going to cut right through but I'm going to use the fatter in and I'm gonna start at the end of the pedal and I'm going to press down and pull it in towards the center so it's press down pull it in and we'll just move this flower well pressed down pull it in press down pull it in pressed down pull it in do you notice I've skipped a couple that's on purpose so pressed down pressed down we've gotta work fairly fast so doesn't get dry and crusty because it will okay now then are the ones that I didn't press down and pull in I'm going to flip it over on the back side and we hit those from the other direction so that they have a little different character and interest ok then I'm going to place this into what's called the flower former and they look like this which happens to look a lot like your cardboard tubes from your paper towels right? So if you don't have a flower former you can use the cardboard tube from your paper tells but since I have invested heavily in a fancy flower former money you set ok and I'm gonna put it in there and let it start to set up and in the meantime I'm going to keep going on the rest of my flowers how you guys doing everybody at home is getting this too they're fascinated fascinated d a serum would like to know if the board underneath your past machine came with pasta machine or is that a separate item no that did not come with my pasta machine that's actually a piece of um korean and it's good for rolling out working your gum paste on but I also discovered that it works really well for my pasta machine let me show you what I did I have my pasta machine attached and then I put a piece of non skid underneath it and then I just said it anywhere so if it's taking up too much room on my band charges move it out of the way if I'm not using you know I don't have to stop and reattach and yeah so cake decorators were kind of known for coming up with weird things for solutions because we're often handed problems I mean you know how do you solve this issue we want to buy plane on the cake okay now a couple of solutions is I can go to the store and buy a by pant plain and assemble it do all that stuff or I can make it out of sugar using foam core board is supports I like it one of those cake shows when they first came out they had uh I think it was duff I think he was on one of the first ones and he was showing he said, I'm going to home depot that's my best place to buy cake supplies and he was trump and through home depot talking about how the risk the decorators didn't know how to do that and all and then as he was doing that they're showing all the rest of the cake decorators and home depot trump and through buying supplies when I travel and teach outside of the area that's usually the first place we go to buy supplies is we go to home depot, you can buy materials to make rolling pins you can buy foam to make foam pads, you can buy light fixtures to make impression mats so all kinds of fun things so that always always think a duff in there doing that I'm cracking up are those tv shows as popular as they used to be anymore? I don't want to use the other ones like that kick wars and I'm ok yeah, I don't watch much tv cake, boss ok, so I've got white and orange I need to do a couple more of each color how you guys doing? I don't want to cut those on my phone pad I do want to cut them on a hard surface such as my plastic or my bench listen about what is the size of that the cutter that you're using right now dorothy's asking hi dorothy um let's see where they put it it's about it about two inches clear crossed so yeah one joint of our knuckles about an inch so it's just about a little under two inches I guess thank you you're welcome way do have a thirteen year old in the in the chat rooms well welcome named abby and she's having a bit of a tough time with this but imagine that practice makes perfect yes would that be your advice listen that yes and the other thing about being thirteen is at this point you're fine motor skills are still being developed I have a nine year old granddaughter a kayla who I taught how to do we did bleeding hearts and hers were not as nice as mine but you know what she did a good job and they looked pretty decent she had fun with it so that's part of that's part of this whole thing is having fun developing your skills as you go along and knowing that it's something that you can dio um at all levels just keep working at it right and if she's starting now at age thirteen imagine what you're going to do by the time you're fifteen or sixteen practice practice practice you're gonna be awesome not to mention she could do this them earn earn enough educate earn enough money doing cakes to put herself through college it's totally doable been there done it I actually went to college paid might paid my way through college with my case decorating so that I wouldn't decorate cakes anymore was my game plan got out worked in the field in my expertise that I'd gone to college for and I remember by this point I had a couple of kids and I all I ever said to my kids with come on, hurry up mommy's got a meeting and I thought to myself one day I thought this isn't saying I don't have to do this I can stay home decorate cakes and be with my kids and maybe just a cz much money as I'm making driving in to the big office every day so I did that I quit my job my husband was a little stressed out by it but I quit my job stayed home with my children decorated cakes and was a mother and it was a good thing because one of my children ended up having quite a few health problems and I needed to be there all the time for him okay, now that I have several of these flowers made and they're in the flower former they're still in the soft stage they're not totally set up yet this but I'm not happy with it looks kind of pathetic let's go back and re punch it and see if we can get it to look a little more lifelike just not sure what's going on with that one okay, but I've got it there. What I want to do now is let's take our gum glue on our brush a little light and I'm going dad, just a touch of gum glue in the center of all those just a little touch notice how I do more than one at a time okay, now in a pick up my centers that I made my little green centers and I'm just going to pop it right on press gently on it so it's attached so you want me to share my recipe for gum glue since I'll be making more it's basically I use like half a teaspoon of cmc to two cups of boiled water and then just stir it is best you can and let it sit and keep stirring it um the guns the guns do weird thing in water they kind of glom up and float do all this stuff in your thinking I've created a mess, but the truth of the matter is this if you let it sit, if you just let it sit, it will be fine just turret and I make like I said, I make two cups that fits into water bottle a little plastic water bottle, claim that out, sterilize it, put it in and then I use just a little cup at a time and the rest I store in my fridge and it'll last forever because you've boiled it there's no bacteria growth or anything I'll just you can keep using it ok so that's our daisy and I'm just going to go ahead and sit the's over here and let them dry you see a pattern create let it dry create medic dry create many dry how you guys do it can I walk over and harass you yes oh yes it could be much thinner but I like it it's got a nice feel to this one was like I think tooth and almost you think it's a little peppery you can make your gum paste as thinness paper so you can see through it and it will still work well it will break when you transported if you're not careful but paper thin those were good I like you know fund how you doing with my like a good job did you bring out a flower former yeah you guys needs more yes please you're welcome here you go good job okay so now I still have four left so I'm going to go ahead and very quickly do my last four and then I'd like to do the carnation actually is that the right size that would work um yeah I'm gonna turn two of them into daisies and then the other two I'm going to turn into what a rose or start a rose anyway rachel, you're your flowers are very stylistic, like when you have a a real daisy cutter that you're cutting these out of when you cut them out using your daisy cutter, you often have to pick out several of the pedals out of the cutter because they just, um, they're so tiny that they stick and kind of becomes an issue it's almost easier doing it this way, and one of the very first gum paste classes I had, the instructor was very precise, very persnickety kind of lady, and at the end of five days, one of the students in class had been quite a little messy student had left such a mess that this instructor couldn't take it anymore, and she finally said to the lady, you've got so much stuff on your tray that I could make an entire bo kay out of your scraps, and the student who was tired reached the end of her limit to apparently said, prove it, and this instructor went over, gathered up all of her scraps and literally stood there and made several roses and leaves and got things. So I was quite young. I was probably only twenty two years old when I was in that class, it left an impression on me, I don't let scraps goto waste, I can turn an entire pile of scraps into something I was in college at that time, and I could not imagine somebody talking to an instructor that way was absolutely a cast. Oh, who talks to an instructor like that? You know, this woman had traveled from australia. We brought her in from australia. Paid a lot of money to have her teaches this special skill. And so shannon from canada has a business question for you. Okay, how long did it standing to establish a clientele when you work at home? And what kind of things did you do to help get your name out there? Well, this was long before the internet. Yeah? Yeah. Um, or just the start of the internet, actually. And I would, you know, you do a cake for somebody, you take it to the p t a meeting. You take it to you, send it to work with your husband. Um, just kind of do that sort of thing. You do a nice job. People notice they start to ask it's okay, to print up business cards and discuss what it is that you're doing for a very long time. Very careful about advertising. Because if you are, we have rules that if you are not up to all the rules and you advertise your getting a lot of trouble, so um I did a long time with no advertising strictly word of mouth. If my kids were in a play group, I would show up occasionally for somebody's birthday with the decorated cake and just that alone it doesn't take long, you'll have you'll have more than we all know what to do it just do a nice job and make it taste good. Yeah okay, now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take one of these five pedal cutters that I created for the daisy, but this time what I'm gonna do, I wanna flip it over so I'm working on the back of the cut edge give a little pat with my corn starch so it's not sticking let's take our ball tool I mean, the ball all five petals I'm not going to cut him and this particular cutter that our little close and they stick sometimes, so I'm just going to ball that did that help her now on the internet you can put things out there, but and I'll say this from a business standpoint, I would be very careful what you post on the internet as far as what you're doing or not doing I see a lot of times people posting things that are copyrighted images and companies like disney and um warner brothers are really big on people who infringe on their copyrights and if you're doing cakes that are infringing on copyrights I'd be really careful what you post because they will take your house, your car, your savings accounts and your retirement and they have every legal right to so I often see people posting things and I think wow don't do that um and they go after the little guys they're easy yep ok so now I have this five petal flower that I've bald on each side I flipped it over I put a ball took my big ball and I ran it down the center of each petal towards the center and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my glue and I'm going to put a little glue on either side of each of those five petals just a little and I know I'm doing a lot of brushing so it looks like I'm adding a lot but the truth is is that it's not that much actually fairly thin I got the center also wet on that five pedal and then I'm going to take my small cone that I created and I'm going to set it right there in the center I want to take one pedal, bring it up and wrap it around tightly and I took the one with the most ruffle because that didn't fit the rest of them that's how I chose that pedal ok so I've got it wrapped tight tight that's a pretty loose tight but it's wrapped okay, so we have one pedal up wrapped tight that's this pedal so that's pedal number one number two number three I'm going take pedal number three bring it up rapid on either side I want to gently pull back so that it looks like that peddles starting to open pinch on either side so it will stay now I'm going to go with any one of the three remaining pedals and I'm going to attach one side and I'm going to bring up the next one and attach one side and I'm going to bring up the next one and tuck it into this side and wrap all three of those gently, gently but firmly, firmly try not to crush and destroy and then I'm going to pull out each little edge and open up my little rose bud, can you go to see that now at this point I can call this a rose bud be done with it use it on a cupcake or decoration or on my wedding cakes or on a birthday cake but we're going to let this set up a little bit and roll out another rose petals and what I want to do should sit what I want to do is I want to do a larger one so I can show you in a bigger size the smaller ones are cute but they're kind of tough to see and view I just did get because I already have the pedal so let's do a little larger pedal so you can see it and I'll do it again a couple of times okay, so what we're doing is we're starting on a rose so right now we've already started on the center of that rose and we just need to let it set up and dry in between each one so well I gotta leave that wants to fall off so did you say you were going to use the next larger pedal cutter for this next rose so we did the rose bud and then you say you're gonna cut went out with a bigger I'm going to use you have bigger one because I had a small cone made for the smaller wonder show so the larger weapon this next okay? Ok, so I've gone to five on my um pasta machine going to cut out and I chose the cutter that amusing because of the size of my cones on my cone fits this cutter you guys see that I could probably even get away with thiss one could get away maybe with this one yeah I'll use this one because it's fits better ok? So the size of my cutter is determined by the size of my cone or the size of my cone is determined by the size of my cutter and since I have more cutters and I have cones just to confuse you guys. Is it working? I did not do a good cut on that. I do not want to have little edges like that. So this's, where you get to find out how level your serve this is that you're working on. Oh, and my little, my little one fell over. Sometimes finding where you're going to store these while they're drying is the hard part, so they don't keep falling over and try to make the bottom level way go.