Constipated flowers
Constipated - Stiff, stodgy, or recalcitrant: "united only in a constipated hatred of change of any kind" (John Fowles)
This is exactly what I encountered when I tried to find edible decorations for the wedding cakes I was making back in 1996. Not only were the decorations constipated but the people making and those selling them also suffered from a serious case of constipation!
If anyone remembers the way wedding and birthday cakes were decorated twenty years ago they'd know what I was talking about. The bouquets were always made up of dull and very thick roses, 3 or 4 leaves and endless shiny florist ribbon! Ocassionally a carnation or two would be added, maybe even an arum lily but the concept remained the same, lifeless constipated flowers!!!
I then decided that the only way I was going to get what I needed was to make them myself, easier said than done! I didn't know the first thing about sugar artistry, I couldn't find any books and trying to find someone willing to teach me was like trying to find a needle in a haystack! I eventually found some instruction in a magazine but just like sugar flower books today, you have to have some knowledge of the craft to be able to follow the instructions. Not having money to buy the tools and equipment needed also hampered my progress, at times I was ready to give up and admit defeat, I don't give up easily so I decided to save some money and buy the only book available at the time and take it from there.The book is a Look and Learn aproach, each step of the flower is explained and a drawing shows what each step is supposed to look like once completed.
For some reason I found this book not very helpful, since then I've been told by many other people that they didn't understand the book either. I have a number of sugar flower books today and one of the things I've noticed about all of them is although they say "for the absolute beginner" you have to have some knowledge of the craft before attempting any project in the books.
"Practise makes perfect" Very true! Just like with everything else you have to keep practising, I was usimg toothpicks,bottle caps,biscuit cutters just about anything I could lay my hands on to help me make the flowers I was attempting. Eventually I did buy some tools and the cutters I needed and adventurously decided to make a rose. Well, my first attempts looked more like cabbages but with practise they started looking more like roses! I hadn't really been interested in gardening before but I found myself visiting nurseries and flower shops quite often, I had started gardening and buying flowers so that I could study them more closely. I watched the plants grow literally! Everyday I would be outside to check whether there were new leaves or buds and what colour they were at the different stages. Everywhere I went I would study plants, trees, flowers, if it grew I wanted to know more about it, I was obsessed with learning all I could from nature! Even weeds did not escape my somewhat crazed obsession to learn all I could.
I have learnt more from my gardening magazines and books than I could ever have learnt from any sugar craft book. Although today I can do just about any flower, I feel there is still so much more to learn,this is not craft you can or should call yourself an expert in, not in my book anyway!!!
Striving to replicate that which God had created perfect!
This is exactly what I encountered when I tried to find edible decorations for the wedding cakes I was making back in 1996. Not only were the decorations constipated but the people making and those selling them also suffered from a serious case of constipation!
If anyone remembers the way wedding and birthday cakes were decorated twenty years ago they'd know what I was talking about. The bouquets were always made up of dull and very thick roses, 3 or 4 leaves and endless shiny florist ribbon! Ocassionally a carnation or two would be added, maybe even an arum lily but the concept remained the same, lifeless constipated flowers!!!
I then decided that the only way I was going to get what I needed was to make them myself, easier said than done! I didn't know the first thing about sugar artistry, I couldn't find any books and trying to find someone willing to teach me was like trying to find a needle in a haystack! I eventually found some instruction in a magazine but just like sugar flower books today, you have to have some knowledge of the craft to be able to follow the instructions. Not having money to buy the tools and equipment needed also hampered my progress, at times I was ready to give up and admit defeat, I don't give up easily so I decided to save some money and buy the only book available at the time and take it from there.The book is a Look and Learn aproach, each step of the flower is explained and a drawing shows what each step is supposed to look like once completed.
For some reason I found this book not very helpful, since then I've been told by many other people that they didn't understand the book either. I have a number of sugar flower books today and one of the things I've noticed about all of them is although they say "for the absolute beginner" you have to have some knowledge of the craft before attempting any project in the books.
"Practise makes perfect" Very true! Just like with everything else you have to keep practising, I was usimg toothpicks,bottle caps,biscuit cutters just about anything I could lay my hands on to help me make the flowers I was attempting. Eventually I did buy some tools and the cutters I needed and adventurously decided to make a rose. Well, my first attempts looked more like cabbages but with practise they started looking more like roses! I hadn't really been interested in gardening before but I found myself visiting nurseries and flower shops quite often, I had started gardening and buying flowers so that I could study them more closely. I watched the plants grow literally! Everyday I would be outside to check whether there were new leaves or buds and what colour they were at the different stages. Everywhere I went I would study plants, trees, flowers, if it grew I wanted to know more about it, I was obsessed with learning all I could from nature! Even weeds did not escape my somewhat crazed obsession to learn all I could.
I have learnt more from my gardening magazines and books than I could ever have learnt from any sugar craft book. Although today I can do just about any flower, I feel there is still so much more to learn,this is not craft you can or should call yourself an expert in, not in my book anyway!!!
Striving to replicate that which God had created perfect!
Comment
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Comment by Neryl Johnson on June 18, 2010 at 2:37pm
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Thank you for reading and commenting on my post Mara, my flowers are sold in a shop so I can't make the petals as thin as I would like them to be, maybe someday I can get back to making flowers the way I want to! sigh!
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Comment by Mara Jesena-Wuerth on June 17, 2010 at 10:25pm
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That's exactly how I felt when when I first started doing sugar flowers. There are some classes but are very expensive, tools are too. Part of the whole experience is gathering odds and ends and trying to make them useable. Gardening, too. You are in the right track as far as teaching yourself how to make sugar flowers. Practice and patience. Good luck. And a great tip...try to make your petals as thin as you can...makes all the difference.
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Thank you for reading my post, yes cake decorating has come a long way but, many are still stuck in the past!!!
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Comment by Theresa Happe on June 14, 2010 at 1:50pm
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When I first started reading this, I thought "uh oh, someone posted a metamucil ad."
But, I know what you mean. Cake decorating has come a long way over the past decade. When I started, fondant hadn't even been introduced in this country yet. I study the flowers in my garden every day and learn new things. Unless you looked at real flowers, you'd never know that the sun bleaches the color out of them. So, your flowers shouldn't all look the same. The longer they're open, the lighter the color.
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