Practice Makes Perfect

As anxious as I am to keep to learn new things, I also know the importance of practicing what I have already learned. So this time I decided to go back to roses, violets and of course some rosettes.

The roses I am getting pretty good at.

White rose

 
One thing I did learn from this round was that it's not a good idea to fill the pastry bag really full. If there's too much frosting in the bag it makes it a lot harder to squeeze it out, especially since you're only using one hand because the other hand is holding the flower nail.

The violets are a lot harder than I anticipated, and I'm still having a little trouble with them. Part of it is also that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to things I'm really passionate about and I want it to look exactly like the pictures on Wilton's website, haha :)

White violet

One thing I think that would help, is to practice them on a cake turntable, so I can turn the table as I'm piping each petal, and not having to try to turn my wrist to achieve the desired shape. Luckily, I have already ordered one from Amazon (360 Degree Revolving Cake Stand) and its arrival is expected any day now! I chose that one because the price was awesome, and it will serve as both a turntable to prepare the cakes, and a nice looking cake stand, so I won't have to transfer the cake to a different stand.

As far as the rosettes go, my plan was at some point to be decorating some cupcakes with them, because I like that look. That being said, I wanted to get some practice piping them onto something with that shape, without having to make cupcakes.

So, it might seem a bit unorthodox, but I decided to pipe them on to the bottom of a cup (similar shape, right?). I'm happy to say it actually worked out quite well. And it was super easy to just wipe the frosting off so I could re-pipe another rosette, without having to dirty too many cups.

Blue rosettes

Blue rosette (top view)

I had recently got some royal blue gel coloring, as I knew I was going to need a darker blue for some of my upcoming decorating ideas, so I decided to try that out for the rosettes. I really like that deep blue color, I think it turned out pretty nice.

These practice sessions are obviously not as exciting as learning something new, especially for someone like me who gets ahead of herself and wants to tackle everything at once. But at least they seem to be helping. :)