Eugena's Creations

Faux Cloisonne Tutorial – Tips from a Student

Christine from Chicago, IL, bought one of my tutorials, Faux Clisonne, just before Christmas. She liked is so much that we exchanged a few E-mails over the holidays. I am publishing this E-mail with her permission:

"...I'd like to share with you a couple of things I did which may or many not help others: As a sugar artist - I fall back to what I know or the discipline I came from which is architecture and then food styling/cake design.

Often I have to roll out fondant -the same consistency as clay in perfect 36" circles - about 1/8 to 1/4" thick as well as smaller decoration all needing to be the same thickness. Not much fits in a pasta maker. I use two long dowels - the thickness I need, place them on either side of my fondant, My rolling pin glides over the dowels - the entire piece is the same thickness. I have cut dowels in increments of 6" long for smaller decorations and use a miniature rolling pin or my roller.

Shading elaborate flowers requires a lot of color and have always used food grade "Luster Dust" from CK - Country Kitchens. Beside the "mica" look it also comes in rich matte colors which I blended with the mica. Not a speck came off. The reds are richer, the plums are deeper.
Another tip - I use a lot of cookie cutters to cut or trace multiple same size basic shapes. I've found wonderful tiny shaped flower cutters in Chinatown, i.e., a 1" detailed seahorse. They use them for dikon.

www.foosecookiecutters.com out of PA has a large selection of miniature cutters, acorns, tiny leaves, bees, dragonflies etc. All sold individually so you can purchase just the shapes you really want. Clay and fondant are similar, the more you work it the more tired it gets and needs to be chilled. Shapes pop out with minimal distress marks.

I would like to say the tutorial I used today was so well thought-out with excellent direction.

Christine"