Ombre Ruffle Rose 80th Birthday Cake

Hi, I feel a little rusty as have not had a chance to blog for a while but here goes!
I was asked a while ago to make a pretty 80th birthday cake using a colour palette of lilac
and pink and here's what I came up with...

 

The ruffles are really easy to make (and quite addictive too!). I simply cut lengths of sugar paste then used a ball tool to ruffle the edges. I then stuck them to the cake sides from top to bottom using a little water as adhesive. To create the depth of ruffle, I concertinaed the strips as I stuck them on.

 

 

To create the ombre effect, I used a graduation of colours from top to bottom.

To get the colours right, I found it much easier to create a range of coloured sugar paste balls first and lie them next to each other on my worktop. Start light then darken to suit until you get the perfect colour mix.

 

 

I created the roses by making a cone of sugar paste for the centre, then wrapping cut circles

of thin sugar paste around it, tweaking the petals as you go to achieve a natural shape.
The roses were left to dry on greaseproof paper in a Yorkshire pudding tin, then dusted with
edible pearl lustre for a pretty sheen.

 

The 80 was made but pressing a Papermania 8 and 0 clear backed stamp into a thick section of rolled sugar paste, which I then cut out, left to dry, added the sheen and mini flowers.

 

 

I made the mini flowers using a metal cutter and molded them to a 3D shape and

used these to decorate the 80 and fill in any gaps!

 

 

Thank you for looking!

 

I would like to enter this cake into the Craft Blogging Central August challenge (I know it is not specifically craft but it is sugar craft so it may count!)

 

Jill x