Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Petalsweet Ranunculus Tutorial

Greetings and Happy February!

We hope you are safely enjoying the winter season wherever you are...we have been blessed with a very mild winter here in Southern California, and are taking advantage of as many opportunities as possible to spend time outside enjoying the sunshine!

We’re very happy to announce our Ranunculus PDF Photo Tutorial is now available for sale online!



We have been working on this little project for several months...and are excited to finally have it completed. We know there are a lot of great tutorials out there for this cutie, and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to share our version too!

This PDF downloadable tutorial features our stylized version of this adorable and trendy bloom! It is definitely one of our favorites and such a great flower for spring and summer designs. There are 30 pages of step-by-step instructions along with over 100 photos used to show you how to make our standard flower, leaves, our favorite little buds, dusting techniques and lots of tips for success.

We had a lot of fun putting it together, and we hope you enjoy it! We'd also love to see any flowers you create, so be sure to share them with us! We are so grateful for your support - thank you!

The tutorial is available for $12.95 USD and you can find it here:



We also wanted to share our Favorite Brush Tips! We have been cleaning and reorganizing in the studio this month, and Jacqueline gets a lot of questions about brushes in class, so we thought it would be a great time to talk about some tricks that work for us!

1. We purchase most of our brushes from a local craft store. We don't buy anything super-duper fancy, but make sure the brushes are of high enough quality they don't "shed" on our flowers when we are using them. We buy brushes for both small blossoms and larger flowers. They are gently washed with soap and warm water and then left to air dry before using. If we need a specialty brush for detail work (like tiny dots on an orchid) we splurge a little at the art supply store.


2. We keep our brushes in color families! Storage can be as simple as jars, canisters or a drawer in your work area, and Jacqueline uses labeled plastic zip top bags when traveling. What's great is, we don't spend our precious time washing them, our brushes last longer because they are not getting frayed, and most importantly, we don't accidentally use the wrong color brush on our flowers. There is nothing like making a pretty blush pink flower and then getting the wrong color on it, right?! 

3. Different brushes have different jobs...just like using brushes for make-up, we find it best to use small, firm, flat brushes to apply dust to a specific area or when edging petals and leaves. Big, round, soft fluffy brushes are great for a light dusting over a large surface area. Here are some quick examples...

Firm flat brushes:


Using a flat brush to add color to the edges of a rose:


Round soft brushes:


Using a big soft brush for a light dusting of pearl dust on a parrot tulip:

Stay safe and enjoy the season...more news and updates coming soon!

Thank you and our very best,

Jacqueline and Petalsweet

Copyright © 2014 by Jacqueline Butler of Petalsweet Cakes. Content of this blog (including text, cake and sugar flower designs, photographs, tutorials, videos and layout) is the property of Jacqueline Butler and Petalsweet - please respect copyright laws. If you want to link to our blog, or post any of our photos, please contact us - it would be great to have the opportunity to connect with you. Thank you!

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