Spring is in full bloom in the U.K. and I just love this time of year. It’s such a joy to be able to walk around the neighbourhood and marvel at the beautiful blossom trees scattering their petal confetti over the pavements.

One of my favourite flowers that I am forever inspired by is the magnolia. We are blessed by so many of these magnificent trees where I live and so I can’t help but draw inspiration from them in my work. It seems that my group members share the same love of this flower. In a recent poll, they voted magnolia as a close second to cherry blossom as their favourite Spring flowers.

A new creation every year

Every year, I create a new magnolia design to add to my portfolio. So I thought I would share them with you along with some photos that I took this Spring when walking around my area.

This is last year’s incarnation…I experimented with a new painting style to create depth in the blue tones of the cake. I then created this hand painted magnolia detailing inspired by Japanese artwork and finished with 2 life-sized magnolia sugar flowers. As a few group members have expressed an interest in the techniques used here, I have now created a magnolia class that incorporated these details. You can find the class here.

Continuing on the same theme, the year before, I tested out an impressionist painted buttercream style. I love this loose way of adding detail to a cake using a palette knife and scraper and then adding highlights with a piping nozzle. The magnolia sugar flowers on this design are in full bloom with the petals falling away.

Inspiration from my neighbourhood

As well as creating flowers by hand, I love to photograph them as well! These are a few pictures I took a couple of weeks ago as inspiration for my next class. I always use pictures online to study flowers before making them and it’s even better when I am able to take my own pictures to use.

Using pictures as inspiration

I never once sit down to make a sugar flower without a picture in front of me as I think it is so important to keep looking, looking, looking to find all of the little details of the flowers to imitate. This close up of the carpel was particularly useful to use as a guide when designing my magnolia class. I also love the shape of the magnolia on the right above as it begins to unfurl and open.

Collaboration

Back in 2016, I took part in a beautiful photo shoot with a fantastic team of suppliers. The above images were taken by Jessica Davies Photography with the bride wearing stunning bridal dress separates by Jessica Turner Designs. I created the bouquet that the bride is holding from crepe paper and made the carpels from clay. For the cake, I experimented with cold porcelain for the first time. I must admit, I wasn’t completely sold on the brand of cold porcelain that I used and so I haven’t used it since. Having recently had a few conversations with my Facebook group members on their preferred brands, I am really keen to try this medium again as I love the flexibility that clay allows the flowers and the fact that they are not susceptible to moisture in the same way that sugar flowers are.

Breathing new life into old sugar flowers

I always hang onto sugar flowers from previous dummies for years as I can’t bear to throw them away! Anyone else have this problem?! They often just end up in a box for the foreseeable. But on this occasion I decided to rework them into a new design. The main part of the cake was me experimenting with different textures. The bottom tier is an asymmetric ruffle effect. And for the top tier, I semi-dried sections of icing and then tore them to create this “torn paper” effect. The camellia and tulip were recycled from one of my favourite photo shoots at Chiswick House and Gardens. Then the magnolia was from my impressionist buttercream cake.

Francesco Foroni Photography

Real weddings

Finally, these were the first magnolia sugar flowers that I created back in 2016. This design was made for a client who was married at Drapers’ Hall in the City of London and was captured by Franceso Foroni. The top two tiers were handpainted and inspired by traditional Japanese paintings with colours that referenced the incredible detailing in the Hall. I then created the magnolia in different stages of bloom to dress the cake.

Learn how to create magnolias with me!

To celebrate one of my favourite flowers, I have now added a magnolia class to the Online School. You can learn how to create your very own realistic magnolia branch from sugar. In addition to that, you can also learn how to paint on a cake in my signature impressionist style. Want to know more about the class? Click here to find out.

I hope you have enjoyed this little inspiration post. What do you think of magnolia? Is it a favourite of yours too?  For me, I will be, forever inspired by magnolia…. <3