Ikibana Style for Gumpaste Flowers

I have been very interested in the flower arranging style, Ikibana.  I have been spending countless hours on the computer researching Ikibana and looking at an endless amounts of pictures. This style of flower arranging is perfect for sugar flowers since there seems to be a focal flower and the arrangements can be very minimal but a very BOLD statement.

I have several large focal flowers already made and found a couple ideas to try my FIRST Ikibana arrangement. Since there are a lot tree branches I needed to create these from floral wire and floral tape. Another wonderful part of creating sugar flowers I am excited to do.

What I found out is there are different types of containers for Ikibana and there are an abundance of choices for each. Instead of rushing out to invest in a new container, I used one I already had and created the arrangement around them from some examples I found in my countless hours on the computer. 

I am quite excited to share my my first try and happy with what I created

And, I will be continuing on with this style of flower arranging

Ikibana gumpaste Cymbidium orchid

Ikibana gumpaste Cymbidium orchid

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Nothing but white flowers, please

I spent all last week making lots and lots and lots of flowers to fill an order. They wanted all white. I didn't have time to take any pictures of the process but will be making more of the same so I will next time.

It is hard for me to leave all these flowers in just white. When I looked at them scattered around the drying area I kept saying to myself.. just a little color. That is all they need. But, I left them alone. Or did I? I did add some color to the moth orchids since the throat just couldn't stay all white. And the Peonies have yellow stamens so there is the color.

White gumpaste flowers

When I laid all the white flowers out together to take the pictures I decided all white flowers do look really nice. I just looked at them for a while and realized they look very beautiful all white and they will be going on the cake and make the person very happy. They will be adding silver touches here and there to them so I will have to wait and see the pictures.

All the white gumpaste flowers together

Bougainvillea and Orchid cake

A cake designed around the sugar flowers



bougainvilleas, plumeria, cymbidium

This cake design came from the stenciling and applique work I have seen on several cakes on other blogs and magazines.  Adding a side design to match the sugar flowers used worked out well since I already had the cutters.

Bougainvillea cake

The top tier I wanted to keep fairly plain being so close to the sugar flowers so adding  a few bougainvillea petals and keeping them uniform made a nice simple design. The bottom tier would be the orchids with a bit more of flowing design and the addition of some color, texture and shape.   After I added the pearl borders I thought it all came together nicely...