Gum Paste Cherry Blossoms

1. 01 Introduction: Thank you for taking this class. In this class, I will show you how to make some cherry blossoms from gum paste. We can use these blossoms to decorate our cakes and cupcakes. First, I will show you how to prepare the wires with the stamen for the blossoms. We will make the cherry blossoms. After the blossoms are made, we will make some buds. Next week, we will color the blossoms and buds. We will finish by putting our blossoms and buds together to make a cherry blossoms spray. These flowers could also be made without the wire so that you can attach them right to the cake and they make a good fill a flower. I am a self taught Baker. I have loved baking most of my life. Many years ago. I decided I wanted to make cakes for special occasions to sell. So I took some classes, read some books, watched a lot of videos. Of course, I practiced a lot until I had honed my skills to the point that I felt like I was ready to open up a homepage. I had this Homeboy bakery for several years until my husband got a job offer in New York City. We felt like this was a good move for us. And so I closed down my home bakery and we moved across the country to New York City. Now here in New York City, I do not want to go through the steps to open up another home bakery, but I still love baking, a cake decorating. So I have decided to share my skills. Hi to you on Skillshare. This class is aimed at the baker that would like to learn how to make gum paste flowers. By the end of this class, you will be able to make the blossoms, the buds, and to put them in a spray that you can then place on your cake. I am excited to teach you the skills in this class. Let's move on to lesson number one, preparing the wires. 2. 02 Making The Centers: We're ready now to make the centers for our cherry blossoms. I'm going to take these wires. These are six inch wires. I'm going to cut them in half because I really only need about three inches. So I've taken about three wires because I'm going to need a lot for in-between them. And I want to have probably for my branches, about 15 to 20 blossoms because I'm doing branches. Now I want to take these and I'm going to do a small head, but I don't want to totally closed up yet. You'll see that I am doing a small hut. And let me show you what I'm going to do for the centers. I have this threat. And the reason why I want to use this thread is number one, you need a lot of these statements. For the center, I got to find the end of the thread. And I'm going to take this thread. I have my fingers that are spread just a tiny bit, not too much. Am I going to wrap the string around it about ten times? Then I want to cut this off. I got a slip my fingers out and I'm going to take my wire, make sure all of it is in their crop, that wire down like that. And then stick my other wire this side and club that wire down. Now with those two wires clamped down, again, it takes time. Scissors, the middle, I'm just going to cut it. There. I have my statements. Now. I'm going to take my ground. And I'm going to cut some off this time because I don't want it to be too bulky. I'm going to cut this in half. So it's only 1 fourth inch wide. With that caps. I'm now going to take my stem, stretch this to activate the glue. And I'm going to put this around. They're bringing it up so that I get the stamen. I'll cut in there. Then bring this back down. And I don't have to bring it all the way down just about that far and secure it than to do the same with the other one that picked them up above the wire and then bring it back down. Now what I wanna do is I want to take this and open them up. So spread them out. You don't want just one cluster. Want to spread them out. As best we can. See, you can see they're spread out. And I'm going to do the same with this one, spreading them out. And it can take a few minutes to spread them out. Use your fingers, you can use the tweezers or you can use a little bit of both. And then I'm gonna continue doing this with all of them until I have them ready. And then I'll show you how we put the part, the part on the ends. If you want to make cherry blossoms that are not on a branch but a separate on the cake. You get to make things that look like this. So I've done the same thing, but I've attached it to part of a toothpick. Let me show you how I did that. I have a much shorter wire here. In fact, I'll be cutting it even shorter now that I have that on. So let me cut that shorter. I wanted touches to the wire, then bring it up onto the threads. I took a toothpick. Am I cut part of it off and then bring it back down onto the toothpick. Just wrap that around. So we have secured and that's ready for a single flower. I'm going to make six of these just in case one breaks. To make the poem. I'm going to put some gelatin in here, Not a whole lot to feel a little bit, and I may have to add more later, we'll see. And then I'm also going to put this dark yellow in there, not a whole lot, just enough to color the gelatin. Let's start with that amount. When we decide it's the right color of yellow, we'll stop. We're going to do to make the pollen is we're going to take this, dip it into our tireless glue just barely so the answer touching. And then dip that in there. And at this point, if you want to kind of separate it more, you can or you can let it wait. And then this is just going to go in a piece of Styrofoam to dry. I'm gonna do that with all of them. Let me show you one that's on the longer stem. Carefully, making sure it's not in one block. There. You can see the problem. I'm gonna go ahead and do that with all of them until I. 3. 03 Making The Blossom: We are ready to start making the blossoms. The first thing I needed to do was to make a very pale pink, this pink that I came up with. And to do that, I took some white gum paste and I just kept breaking off pieces up this pink gum paste and needing it into here until I got it the color I wanted. We're now ready to work with this gum paste to do the cherry blossom. We're going to do what's called a Mexican hat. So I want to make this come a little bit to point. And then I'm going to flatten this with my rolling pin. And I'm going to use this smaller one. I'm going to bring this out. Now. I'm just bringing it down. Bring out the gum paste, all the sides. I have that point. Then I have the gum paste going out in the center. You want to get that as thin as possible going out. And then I'm going to take my cherry blossom and cut that. And there you see the cherry blossom. I'm going to pull that out. And then on my foam pad, I want to just kind of make these petals a little bit thicker and thinner. So sending them out. Then I'm going to turn this over. Now I'm going to be very careful. So I'm going to do just one petal at a time and really make it stretch out like this. And it also gives it texture. Let me first stick this in here. If the depth. Now let's skip that. Because now I'm getting that going in. So I'm just running this out given a texture. Once I've done that to all the petals, I'm going to take my gum gu, which is right here. They put in and just rip that off and just put a little bit in the center. I'm then going to take my statements that I made and poke them through and bring it all the way to the white part. And then underneath. I do want to make sure that that's nice and sticking to the stem. So I'm pushing that onto this floral tape. And then I'm just going to stick this in here to try. And I want to bring out those stretched out like that. There I have my cherry blossom ready to try it. Let me show you one more time. So I'm ruling this and I'm gonna make this smaller. That's way too much. Half of that away. They're not very big flowers rolling it. I actually like to start giving it a little bit of a point this way, my palm and give it a little point this way. And then I like to start flattening it out. Once that's rolled out, we sat up. Put it on here. Sorry. I was supposed to cut down on here. That's not till after it's cut out. They would take the excess gum paste off. Now we're ready for the foam pad where we picked this. Then I'm going to just on the end, then it out. Then I'm going to take this, use this to make the sim to get this down those petals out. Then I just look at it, make sure I liked the center. I'm still showing, which it's not really. So I'm gonna take some more for the center. Just a tiny bit of gum glue, not a whole lot, just a tiny bit down. And stick this down in. And I want to pull this tell the brown is not showing. Then on the back. I want to push this together to the wire and this wire and stick that in here. Now you're going to go ahead and make all yours till you haven't done following those steps that I showed you. And then we'll be back. 4. 04 Making The Buds: We're ready to start making buds that go along with the blossoms. To do that, we're going to be using the same wire that we used before. I'm going to go ahead and take this wire. And this is six inch wire, and I really don't need more than three inches. So I'm going to cut it in half. Just like I did with the flower or the blossom wire. Once it's cut in half. I'm going to make, I want to do that on all of them. I actually want quite a few blossoms, two, because each spread that I make, well, most of the sprigs that I make are going to have at least one bad on it and some of them will have more than one bud. So we're going to want at least ten and maybe more. We're going to use the same gum paste that we use for the blossoms. I'm going to take just a small piece. In fact, this piece may be too big. So let me break some off of it. And I want to roll this into a ball. Once I have the ball made, I'm going to take one or two fingers and I'm going to do once you can see, just kinda press on the edge to make it tear shape. That looks like this. Then I'm going to take one of my wires, dip it in my glue, clean it off on my hand. So there's not very much. I'm going to just stick this on there. So this is kinda ball shape and the part that I made to shape is at the bottom. Now I want to bring this down to the wire. Once I have that, I'm going to take my needle tool. And at the top, I'm going to just draw some lines to show the pit where the petals are going to be. I'm going to do it like four times because there's five petals. And that's all there is to the bed. So then I'm just going to stick it in my Styrofoam so that it can dry. Let me show you again what I do and then take another small piece. Fill in a little bit guys, and then add just a little bit of shortening to it so that it's moist because that last one felt dry. And I want my buds to be different sizes. I don't want them all exactly the same. I'm not like measuring to make sure there's certain centimeters wide because having different spot that Smith having different sizes is okay. I don't want to drastically different but I don't want them all exactly the same either. It's really dry because it's dry, you see in those cracks form. So first I'm leaving that in, then I'm rolling and rolling does is it helps take those cracks out of it. When you roll it and you see no more cracks, then you can make little point. And it doesn't have to be a huge quake because it's just showing us where we're going to put that wire and then dip the wire and clean it and take it in, bring that down to the wire. And then using the needle tool to 412, it doesn't need to go all the way down because we're going to be painting a calleds. At the bottom there. We're going to be painting it green. Just going down to where it starts. Tilting is good. I'm gonna continue making my buds until they're all made. You go ahead and make yours too. You decide how many you want to make. Then we will be back when this system. 5. 05 Painting The Blossoms And buds: I made the buds and the petals. We're ready now to pay me, show you how I do this. I have my paint palette and I use my knife to scrape the colors I needed. So I have a pretty hot pink and two different shades of green. Let me grab one of the flowers. Will show you how we're going to do this. So first of all, with the hot pink, I want to come in here and bring it out. I want to make sure I get all the way around those. Bring it out. I'm also going to open up my filaments there. Then with this angled brush, I'm going to come on the edges and bring it in. So you're going to see some white that remains, but you're going to have that pink color that comes in from the edges and out from the center. I should say you're going to have some very light pink that remains because remember we started with a light pink. And there you have that color. And then I also want to do the same on the back. Just on the edges though, I don't want to come down to the base with it because I'm gonna be using the green and I don't want to mix the colors with the green. I'm going to start with the dark green. And I'm going to paint from the base up. I want to pretty much cover that whole base. Bringing it to where the petals start with the light green. Just want a tiny bit on there. I'm just going to bring it up into the petals from that dark green. It just kinda add some of that color. And I want to put just a little bit of it coming out here too, just to add that life color. And I have very little of it coming. Okay. So it looks like I was out of the camera. So I'm just going to do a little bit therapy in it. Not all the way down in. It's actually starting at the pedal. And let me show you on another one. Let me put that one back and bring out another one. We're going to do is we're going to take this brush and from the inside, bring it out. Bring it out. Once we have each petal and that insight done. I'm going to use the flat edge brush from the edge in. And once I have all of the petals brush that way, I'm gonna go ahead before I turn it over and do this green part. This is the light green. Just a tiny bit up the petal. Just enough to give it a little bit of that greenish glow, but not enough to really add color and turn it over. Using my flat brush, bring it down from the edges. Once I have this completely done down from the edges, use that dark green. Bring it from the stem down. This is our calyx. Down to the pedal. Not going onto the pedal. Then we're going to use that light green. Just putting it a tiny bit up on the pedal. Model whole lot, just a tiny bit. You want your brush to almost have none on it, but have just a tiny bit so that it will brighten that up. And now I've shown you twice. Go ahead and do yours. We have Alpha blossoms painted. Now. We're going to paint the buds. We want to start at the bottom. We're going to use the dark green. And we're going to paint from the stem with a gum paste starts down. We want to bring it to the gum paste and to the end of where it starts to curve. So we actually use quite a bit of the green on this. We're going to switch to the light green. We want it just kind of in the middle of each petal. Bring some light green. And now we're going to use our pink. We want a very dark right up here and then just bring it slightly down from there. We start at the top and just bring it down. Having a dark and the creases everywhere you see a crease make it darker and lighter spreading out from the creases. Just like that. Let me show you one more time. We do starting with the wire on the green, dark green. Coming up to about where the lines start. Because on a bud, you actually do see more of that calyx. So we want to make sure it's painted. Then we wanna do that light green in between each of those lines that we drew. And then I can read fairy dark there and in the creases and coming out very dark in the creases and coming out like that. Go ahead and do yours. We have painted the blossoms and the buds. Now we're gonna go back and we're going to add some protest to it So it gets set less than the look that we like. I have my protest and I'm just going to stick some in the lid. I'm going to take my flower here and I'm just going to dip my brush into the protests. And then I'm going to just put it on my flower. Both the front and the back. There. You see how it's nice and shiny that products will seep in and won't be quite as bright, but it's going to notice that just brightened it up. Let me show you one more time how I did that. I just went on the front. And this one does not have as much protest on it. So it's shiny, but it's not too shiny. So I just go like this and put it on. And we're gonna do the exact same thing on the button. The bud, all the way up. Like that. You go ahead and protesters. Then we'll be ready to move on to our next step. 6. 06 Making The Sprays: We are ready to put our Lawson's and buds together. Now, we're not adding any leaves to these sprigs because when you look at cherry blossoms on the trees, the cherry blossoms come out first, the leaves come out later. So there really isn't any leaves on these branches. I'm going to make different variations of the cherry blossom sprays. For instance. I'm going to make a spirit that has one bud and to blossoms. I'm going to make a spring that has two bumps. One blossom, I'm going to make a spirit that has three blossoms. I'm then going to move on to sprigs of five. With this pixel five, I'm going to make one that has one band for blossoms. One that has two bumps, three blossoms when it has three, but two blossoms and one that has five blossoms. When I'm done, I should have a total of seven sprints that I can add to the branches that I will show you how to make in the next lesson. Let me show you how to make this bridge. Here have one blossom and two flowers. The first thing I need to do is to get each stem ready for the spirit. And since I'm using brown floral tape, I need to put this on basically at the base of that green that I've done. And then I want to bring this all the way down. If you were doing it from the beginning when we added it, if you'd about halfway down, you might not have needed to have done this step. I'm not going to come back up because I was just trying to get these to be brown. I'm gonna do that with all but one of them. So let me get this one also done, then I'll show you with the last one what I mean by not doing it to the last one. So these ones are going all the way down so that I have a brown stem. I'm just trailing flowers really quick. To get that down in the bed. I am pitting at the top. So this one I'm only going to bring this tape halfway down. If that far right about there. I have it about halfway. And the reason why is I'm going to be putting my blossoms on. So I want to bend my stem that has the blossom going to closer to the blossom and bring it down here. And then I'm going to add about two times. Then I'm going to bring my next blossom and put it on. And I want it a little bit lower than that one at the tape, around about twice. Now, I am going to bring this tape all the way down. I just kinda drill my blossom or trauma wire to get this all the way down. And then I'm going to tear that off. And then I have my first sprig. Let me show you one that does not have a button on it. Show you how I do this one. So again, a stretch that's on there and bring it down. Once it's down there. Tear it off. And let's do the next one. This one down. And if I'm doing just blossoms, I really kinda do it the same way as I did with the bud, but I just wanted to show you. So this one pulls out bring it about halfway down. About two times, around, a little bit lower. I'm gonna try that one again. I want to bend that a little bit higher up. Don't like the way that wire spending. There we go. So right about there. It two times around slowly and then just quickly, bring it down and finish that one. And once you have the song, you can adjust those wires just a little bit. So now you see we have one with the bud, one that just has the blessing. I'm going to continue to do my other blossoms. The ones that have five are done the exact same way. So you go ahead and attach all your blossoms. And then we'll be back. Oh, one thing to remember is the buds are always further down the end at the tip. You're not going to put a blossom and then beds below, because the beds, they're the last ones to open, so they're the furthest away from the main part of the tree. So as long as you remember that part, you can't do it wrong. And if you do unlike a 51, and you have three beds and only two flowers, you could put one bad below one of the flowers then. But otherwise the birds are going to be above the flowers. Will be back when I have all the sprigs put together. Our next lesson of making the branches. 7. 07 Making The Branches: We're ready to put together our French. Let me show you how we do this. I have this aluminum craft wire and you wanted to have a little bit of thickness. But you don't want it to. For my three branch, I have cut three different links. I am keeping this the full width. And I'm going to start with the long one. I'm just going to put this on the wire. Bring it up to the top. I want it to actually go over the end of the wire and come to a point off the wire and then bring it back down. I want to bring this down. Probably about halfway. Halfway, about 1 third the way. Probably about right there. Four bunch of this tape off. So I can finish that. Because before I attach this wire, this wire, I need to get it with the tape going down. Let's start the tape there. Go up. Did you get it down there pretty much to the bottom. Rip that off and worn out of. So I want you to stop. I'm gonna do the same with this middle size, so I'll be ready to attach all of the wires. We're now ready to come back to this one and I want to stick this one so it's at least one inch. Show you that at least one inch down in and I wrap it. I'm going to bring this down now to about halfway point of that longer branch right about there. And then I'm going to stick this in because it's a bigger branch. I want to give it probably inches support to that main branch. Then I'll just go ahead and bring this all the way down. And once I get it all the way down to add a little bit of thickness, I'm going to bring that up at least to where the branches start. Get more thickness to that branch. Once I get up to that branch because I still have some left, I'm going to bring it back down to help add more thickness to the French. This time when I get to the bottom, if I still have taped leftover, I will just cut it off because I perhaps just looking pretty good as far as thickness goes past. Now that we have the branch, I want to bring this one out that way. And this one out like that. Then I have my three-pronged branch. Now if I just wanna do a single pronged branch, I'm going to take the same started on them. We get up to the top at that point. Then bring it on down because I want my branch to be proud and I'm just going to bring it down The ones because I'm going to add thickness as I add the springs and I don't have other branches going off that I need to match the thickness. You can also do branches of just two. You could do branches of five, but I probably wouldn't do more than three because it gets kind of complicated pitons proofs on with three view. And to do like a branch or five, I would probably do a branch of two, perhaps a three and then combine them. Or if I want to do perhaps or four, I could then combine this once I have the sprays on here, my perhaps is the one of three, the one single branch. In our next lesson, I will show you how to add the sprigs to the branches. 8. 08 Adding The Sprays To The Branches: We are ready to add the sprigs to the branches to make our cherry blossom branches. I have the three branch cherry blossom and I have my three blossom sprays. And I'm just going to stick this I bet this wire. And I've already added the tape. That cherry blossom. And I'm just going to stick this close to the top, but not all the way to the top because I do want that sticky now. And then I'm just going to wrap that wire around that cherry blossom sprig. I want to bring this all the way down to secure it. Then this one a little bit more out of the way so I can get to them. And you have to do this slowly because you've got the other branches in the way. And as you add more sprigs, you're going to have those delicate cherry blossom spring. So you don't want to go twirling it like we did when we were making the sprigs because then we might have things connect and break. Once I get that down there. I'm just going to bring this backup a little bit to make sure it's really secure and then break off that tape and secure it down. This little sprig. I'm going to have a half on the spring and half on the main thing. I wanted to start by painting this floral tape on this brick. Then I'm going to add that sprig and I want it shooting out on that little branch. I want to make sure this is attaching to that little branch just a couple of times around on that little branch. Then attach that to the main branch and bring this down. I'm going to add just a little bit more of this thick tape onto there to help that blend in with the brown one attaching the sprig, I want to use the half tape, but to get it to blend in, I'm using that full tape. Once it's blended in, I can tell that. Fasten it down. Now on this branch right here, I want to add more blossom. Right there. I have my half tape. And of course, I do want to stick this onto the sprig. And then from there, I'm going to add it to this branch. I'm actually going to bring this one pretty much all the way up to that tip. I don't really want any branch showing above it. And then I'm going to bring this tape down to totally attach, rip that off. Then I'm going to take my three books someone and also attach it to this branch. I put the tape on the Blossom before I stuck it on here. And I want to bring that down. And I'm doing this slowly instead of moving the branch all of them because I don't want to break my blossoms. Once I have that sprig wired, totally covered, then I can break this off, although I think I'm going to take this and run it into that perhaps there. And then we have the upper part of our cherry blossom done. Now, we're going to take this three blossom to bed. And kindness took it right here in the crux there. But all the taping is gonna be done on the main branch. So none of the taping is going to be on branch is the branch that shooting out. This is all going to be on the main branch. And then I can kinda Trill this a little bit faster because it's upright. Get that one totally attached. Then I have one more Sprague. I'm going to add to this, and it's going to be on the main branch again. I want to add the tape to this main. This is a five blossom sprig. I do want to bend this wire that's coming out and stick this like right down there. And I want to attach this one. Go very slowly, especially at first. Make sure I get it all on there and then bring this down. That wire is totally covered and attach here. I can turn these whichever way I want. The wire there. I have my three branch sprig. Now we're ready to do our one branch sprig. And to start with, I'm just going to take a single blossom. I bent it and I want to pin it about that. It's a little bit below that point. Then I'm going to use my tape. Whoops, let me attach it first to that sprig. And I'm going to bring that down. Once I have that attached. I'm going to bring my five Sprague that has two blossoms and three buds and put it down below. And then right about here, I'm going to add my four blossom, one spread and I want that one really coming out and attach that. And then I'm just going to take this tape and continue it down till the tape has gone. Help arrange these so they look better. Otherwise, I don't want him to cluster together. There we have our one branch sprig. Now if I wanted to, I wanted to make this branch bigger. At this point, I can always add this branch to that. Here are our cherry blossom branch. 9. 09 Final Thoughts: Thank you for taking this class. Have fun making our cherry blossom sprays. Individual cherry blossoms. You learned how to prepare the center wires for the blossoms with the stamens attached to the wires. We next learned how to make the cherry blossoms and attach them to the wire. Then we learned how to make some buds. We learned how to color the buds. We attach all of our items into one spray that we could then put on. Your project for this class is to make a cherry blossom sprays. It needs to have at least one bun and a few flowers. Please make sure you post your pictures into our class project page and let us know how it goes. I look forward to hearing from my kitchen to your kitchen. Happy.