Autumn Gum Paste Arrangements

This week I was asked to make a wedding cake topper and 4 smaller clusters for each tier.   The 'inspiration picture' I saw had pumpkins and autumn leaves and berries.    The topper is in the first picture-- it had 3 pumpkins, about 10 leaves, and several berry clusters.

Here you can see the smaller clusters of leaves that I made for each of the 4 tiers.  The two without berries will have pumpkins with them when they're placed on the cake:

I had to do everything in a pretty short time frame, but I managed to make 5 pumpkins, 8 large maple leaves, 7 yellow ivy leaves and 8 light green ivy leaves, along with about 20 different berry clusters.  Everything was made from home made gum paste except for the pumpkins; the pumpkins had chocolate and rice cereal centers and were covered in orange fondant.  In spite of trying to reduce the weight by using the chocolate and rice cereal center, they were still really heavy!

I finished everything up this morning-- dusted in appropriate colors, steamed, and sprayed everything with edible lacquer.  Then I assembled the topper and the 4 little sprays. 

 

You know, it's one thing to make all of the individual gum paste pieces-- arranging them is a completely different animal!  First, you kind of have to pray that the individual pieces you made can be assembled in any meaningful way, and then you have to pray that you have enough individual pieces and that you don't break any in the process...

Anyway, I ended up really happy with how everything came out.  Still, I'm fairly interested in taking a class in floral design or something to see how the pros do it.  

I hope the couple likes it!  Meanwhile, don't you suddenly get the urge to jump in a pile of crunchy fall leaves?  Maybe that's just me... :)

Have a great weekend!