Gumpaste Flowers... Buy or Make?

 Do you buy any of your gumpaste flowers?  Let me guess!  If you are a cake hobbyist, you make your flowers.  It's fun and challenging and your time does not equal money.  If you sell cakes professionally, I will guess that you buy at least some of your flowers.  Why would you not?  Are you some sort of flower purist? Do you think it's cheating? I made some beautiful ranunculus for a magazine shoot and they took me eight hours per flower! 

When I meet with a bride, I ask if they want flowers and then if they want fresh or sugar flowers (they don't know what gumpaste flowers are...yet).  They will often hesitate and I fill in with "I buy most of my flowers and they are often close in price to fresh flowers".  At that point, they are interested.  If I said the flowers would be three times more than fresh, I'd hear "I'll just use fresh".  There is a rare bride in Chattanooga that would not baulk at a handmade flower price, but as I said that is rare.  On some cakes, I really want to use gumpaste flowers so I will make it even more attractive, as in price.  I charge the cost of the flowers plus shipping and the time and supplies it takes me to paint them (if needed).  I include extra flowers in the price to allow for breakage.  If I have to buy a flower that I will never need the extra (5 for the cake and have 4 left) then they pay for the whole box because that is still fair.  If you book a cake in January with gumpaste peonies, order them then because they will be out of stock when you need them.  Just write on the box of flowers so you don't accidentally use them on another project.  We also will make extra petals to add some softness and fill in gaps between flowers. 

 

The flowers from the pictured cake were bought from Cal-Java and Wholesale Sugar Flowers.  The challenging part was that the cake was ivory/yellow because that is the color of my buttercream (with whitener added) and all the purchased flowers were bright white so they had to be painted.  Luckily, I could paint them with the airbrush so that cut down on my time. 

We entered a contest and won so our cake picture is one the front (and some inside) of the Wholesale Sugar Flowers catalog.  We really like their flowers and the prices! Please let us know how you sell your gumpaste flowers and if you make them, buy them or a mix of the two.