I can't even believe I am asking this, but for some stupid reason, I seriously struggle with getting wires of any kind to stick in my flowers. I have tried all different thicknesses of wire... wire coated with plastic, coated with a paper-type material.. wire naked. Every time I try and start my gumpaste/fondant flowers with a wire I fail miserably.

I have been able to fudge it until now and have repeated had to adjust my design, but I now have an order where I need to create a rather large and long spray of wildflowers and I dont know how the heck to get over this hurdle.

Am I using the wrong wire? Are my flowers too heavy? Am I really a bad flower maker?

I use a little gum glue on the wire and then insert it into the flower. If your flowers are heavy maybe you can use a thicker wire. Hope this helps
Katy

Most of the time you can make a little hook on the end of your wire, and make a little ball and put on the end. Then shape it kind of like the underside of a rose or carnation, then attach that to the back of your flower. I don't know how big your flowers are, but maybe that would help. I usually attach everything with egg whites. It makes a great glue, but I think water will do the same.

I have been using a mixture of 1 part meringue powder to 1 part water (1 tbs of each) as my gumpaste glue and it works pretty well.

I have been putting a toothpick covered in gum glue into the center of my roses and using the toothpick to stick them in the cake, works great if you don't need height (I'm sure you could also wrap wire around the toothpick and secure with floral tape if you had to).

I have also been doing the hook on the end with a little ball of gumpaste. Poke it right through the center of the flower and thread it from the bottom. It gives the flowers a cute little center and gives you something to anchor the bloom to. I also use my glue on the back of the little ball to help it stick, then I dry them upside down... HTH!

Hi, Do not despair!! Everyone can make flowers, you just need to make sure you're doing rght
Could you tell us what flowers you're tring to do?
Any wired flowers has to be on a 'cone'depends what flowere you're doing then you shape the cone accordingly. It's preferably better if it's left to dry but some ppl would disagree with that, it's what you find easier for you. And yes gum glue, water is best. i don't tend to use egg white i haven't found it necessary so far. There are loads of tutorial on th CC website. I know maybe there is not the right tutorial for the kind of flowers you're doing but, it's the same principals. Hope this help a little bit.
Good luck
Naz

I heat my wires in a candle before inserting into sugarpaste ball/cone. The heated wire melts the sugar and helps it stick

Perhaps my roses have been too heavy to be supported by the wire I've been using.. And i havent been making any kind of "hook" at the end of my wire ( seems to be a big part of my problem. )

Thanks for the tips and advice.. Sorry to sound like such a novice!

I dip my wire in a bit of egg white before putting it into the gumpaste/fondant.

If you are speaking of flowers where each petal is wired separately and then assembled you really must have a ridged cel board to roll the paste. It gives you a ridge in the back of the gumpaste on each petal, you then dip your floral wire into the gum glue and feed the wire up the ridge from the bottom of the petal and up about 2/3rds of the way, then pinch the gumpaste at the base of the petal where it meets the floral wire to secure it. Stick each wired petal into a block of styrofoam to dry and then assemble with floral tape, dust with petal dust and steam over boiling water to set the color. Stick back into styrofoam to air dry.

If you don't have the extra strength of that ridge to hold the wire securely they will want to slip off. If the petal is a heavy one, such as for the tulip I make a tiny little hook in the end of the wire, dip just the hook in gum glue and thread up the ridge, then gently pull back out a bit until you feel the hook catch in the gumpaste. Pinch the paste at the bottom of the petal to secure to the wire. That gives you extra strength for heavier petals.

Ahhhhh... So basically.. the ridge and/or hook is really really important.
I guess my problem stems ( no pun intended) from the fact that I have really only been successful making roses and the way I make them must be basically WRONG because I wind up letting them sit in a cradle of cotton for the petals to dry and I havent been able to do this with a wire threaded in the bottom, even if I let it sit in styrofoam. it flops over.
and the lilies I have tried, I havent wired each individual petal, but instead have tried to make the whole flower as one piece.

as for the hook.. once i have the wire in place, I can bend the bottom of the wire to let the whole flower still sit in the cotton cradle as long as its secured with the hook.. right? or should I stop doing that?

I am starting to see a serious flaw in my flower making technique.

Here is a basic gumpaste tool kit I posted awhile back, it shows all the things you really need. You can find all of them at Global Sugar Arts. And here is a handy little website for tutorials, just click on "how To" and then "Sugarpaste" and from there you can choose to look at tutorials for several gumpaste flowers. The site is from England but she studied with Nicholas Lodge, so they are his way of making flowers.
http://globalsugarart.com/catalog/category_514_Edibles_Fondant__Gumpaste_page_1.html
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-54056.html
http://www.culpitt.com/how-to.php

THANK YOU Shirley! I really appreciate your help with this!

Your very welcome.

I was tought how to do gumpaste flowers by a 80 year old woman, so my technique may not be up to date, but for roses, I put One stem in the Base of the rose. Let it dry completly and then move on to the petals. But when I do petals, I have to do one set around at a time let dry and go another round let dry.... and so forth, so it can be time consuming, but that's the way I learned. Put them stem for your rose in the center piece of the rose.