Gum Paste Red Roses
by Tracy Unsworth, New Zealand
Layout & Editing by Diane Shavkin NY
Background:  Tracy's Gum Paste Red Roses

Color the gum paste for the red rose the day before. 

Next day, make the cone shape for the red roses on heavy florist wires (no paper on it). 

Let dry about a week to be sure they have dried in the centre and won't come off the wire. 

Hint:  Heat wire over a candle and stick straight into the cone, so that it would be ready to use almost instantly. 



Use large petal cutter and cut a five petal red flower. 

Form into a rose bud. Use the ball tool to ball the edges of each petal to give a slight frill.  The first layer is just to make the centre part of the rose.  Note:  It is fine to make the center which is the rose bud in the manner desired (how you would normally do your style of the rose bud. 

On the second layer, ball the edges and make a slight curl on each side of the petal.  Ball the centre of each petal into the centre.  When this section is stuck to the first part of rose, turn it upside down in order for the petals to curl out like a real rose. 

Hangreach rose with wire on a frame to let it set slightly.  Before completely set, adjust each petal to where it looks bset. 

The next day, dust them with colour desired.   Non-toxic chalk pastesl ground may be used. 

Steam the roses and leave to dry by sticking the wire into stryofoam. 

When dry, use green modelling paste and the caylix to finish. 

Each rose was then wired with 2 rose leaves that was pre-made, dusted and steamed.  This then gave the illusion of rose leaves.  Use florist tape to cover the wires and attach the leaves.  A bouquet of flowers can now be made or a bridal bouquet.  As the rose and leaf were wired together, stop at where the leave wires ended and twist the tape a couple of times around stems to give the natural bumps on stems to simulate where the leaves would have come out of the stem.

Additional information by Tracy:
I also made all the buttonholes and the brides hair roses, too.  They were 3 ivory and 3 gold.  The gold ones were dusted with the same gold dust and steamed and the grooms buttonhole was done to match and dressed with 2 rose leaves and some ivy.  The rest of the buttonholes were red roses with 2 rose leaves.  The mother of the brides had ivory roses with rose leaves, only difference was they had one medium sized rose and 2 tiny roses too.
All roses on cake were done the same but instead of on wires I did them on raw spaghetti noodles so as to be able to break them off at the base of the rose.  The lillies on the cake were pre made a couple of weeks earlier.  To do them I cut out each petal and lay them over a cardboard roll cut in half and covered with wax paper to stop them sticking.  When they were dry i dusted them with the gold dust but did not steam them.  I used bought pearl stamens for the stigma and I hand painted each gold stamen on bought ones too as they were purple (and were the size of a metal sewing pin).  To put the lillies together I used egg cups.  I had a small square of waxed paper in bottom, piped in some ivory coloured royal icing and stuck in the first 3 petals at 12 ,4 and 8 o'clock positions and then added some more royal icing in middle and placed remaining 3 petals at 2, 6 and 10 o'clock and while royal icing was still wet i poked in my 6 stamens and 1 stigma.  Once they were dry I redusted them with the gold again.

 
 
 
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