Edible Feather Tutorial

 

My friend Kimberly told me a while about that she had made peacock feathers using wafer paper.  I was intrigued, so I immediately ordered a package.  And there it sat, for months and months, until I finally needed to make my Gatsby inspired cake for the recent photo shoot we did.  It was so easy to make I thought I would share with you my loyal readers.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

1.  Wafer Paper
2.  Picture of your feather
3.  Parchment paper (for tracing)
4.  Marker
5.  Scissors, Exacto knife, or Razor blade
6.  Cutting board or surface
7.  White wire
8.  Tylose glue / Sassie Sap Glue

The first thing we need to do is get our feather pattern.  I used this image and enlarged it to the size I wanted on my iPad.  Then I put my parchment paper over it and traced the basic shape of the feather with my marker.

Now that we have an image to cut, just place your wafer paper over the parchment paper.  You can see right through it!  Just cut it gently with your Exacto knife on the cutting board.  The wafer paper cuts easily and with a light hand you won't even cut through the parchment paper.

Pop out your feather and place it back on the cutting board.

Don't draw on YOUR feather!

I made these lines on the wafer paper with a pen, but these are for illustration purposes only.  These lines just represent how you will cut the blades of the feather.

These spring loaded sewing scissors work pretty well, they make tiny cuts, but I found it a little hard to get the cuts deep enough into the feather.

A very sharp Exacto knife goes more quickly and allows you to vary your cuts.  Keep cutting the blades of the feather until your done with both sides.  If you get a couple of jagged edges, it's OK - it's a bird feather!

Now it's time to ruffle some feathers!  Just thumb through the blades to separate them a little.  More if you really want a rustic look!

Now your feather is almost finished!  To put on the cake I used some white wire to go the length of the feather (with some left over to insert) and I adhered it with a little Sassie Sap sugar glue or some tylose glue.

If you enjoyed the tutorial, leave me a comment here and let me know - and don't forget to stop back in next week!

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Art Deco / Gatsby Wedding Cake

This the other cake I made for the wedding photo shoot I was involved with a few weeks ago.  You see, when you have all these people together with their time invested, it really doesn't take that much more to get a second (or third) look and feel using mostly the same props.  The bride changes dresses and makeup, switch out the flowers, and voilà!  Different (looking) photo shoot!

One of the "looks" we were going for was a Great Gatsby / Art Deco wedding look.  I could have used the bird cage cake I made, but I had some extra time and I wanted to some great pictures of another cake for my portfolio as well.

I didn't really get to finish this cake like I wanted to, but I wasn't ashamed to bring it either.

I really liked the way the white stenciling over the gold tier turned out.  The tier being entirely gold was just too much!  Stenciling white over still left a very impactful statement. And I thought it went very well with Amanda's bridal bouquet, don't you?

My favorite part of this cake were the edible feathers we made!  What's that you say?  Edible Feathers??  Yep!  And they're actually easier than you would think to make them.

Drop back in next week and I'll have a tutorial ready for you on how you can make your own edible feathers.

Bird Cage Woodland Wedding Cake

I have always been obsessed with birds.  I have have had them as pets and I spend a small fortune keeping food for almost every type of bird in my yard at home.  So it shouldn't be terribly surprising that I have and idea in my head for a cake inside a bird cage.  I don't know if it's something I have seen somewhere before, (I'm sure someone has done it) but it has always just been an image that struck me as... romantic.

When my friend Daisy Moffatt was designing her "Garden Fantasy Wedding" photo shoot I really had full control on what the cake looked like.  And it just so happened that the weekend before the shoot I ran across this bird cage at Home Goods (that store gets me into SO much trouble).  I immediately texted a picture of the cage to my friend (and florist for the shoot) Amanda and said "What do you think of a cake inside here?"  Her response was "Go for it!"

The cage was initially colored a silver/black metallic color and as I played with my dummy tiers inside the cage I decided that it would need a coat of paint to better go with my vision.  Krylon spray paint to the rescue!

I cut some birdie silhouettes using my Cricut and made sure they were thicker so that I could edge them in metallic gold luster dust.  The rest of the cake is just covered in fondant with branches that I carved into the fondant using my sculpting knife, some gumpaste flowers, and some scroll molds painted metallic gold.

Once it was put together i thought that it still needed a punch of color so I covered the bottom of the cage (which was leveled with a piece of foam with some moss.

I was very pleased with it once the whole vision came together.  Above is a picture that Chaddy took during the shoot while Daisy was off photographing the bride - I'm sure her pictures came out better!

Photo Shoot for ...

I was reading a blog a while back and the author said that if you want to be part of a photo shoot then you should make it happen.  Pick your favorite vendors, a great concept, and a great location.  This has been a slower year for wedding vendors in my area, so there have been a few of these shoots taking place.  A great couple of friends of ours decided to come up with a concept and I was lucky enough to be invited.  They gave us plenty of time and lots of artistic freedom.  I think that was a big plus because no artist wants to be given a big list of rules when they are making something for fun.  Our theme was to be "garden" so that was pretty easy.   Amanda, with Divine Designs by Amanda, did all the flowers and the table setting.  She worked with White Table on the linens and chair sashes.  Chad took these pictures but Daisy Moffatt was the official photographer.  And it all went down at the lovely Black Fox Farms.  The plan is to submit the pictures to blogs, magazines, websites and to add to our portfolio.  I am really fortunate to get to work with such a great group of people.  I can't wait to show you more pictures in the weeks to come.