Halloween Grout and Sunflower Sugar Skull

Hey guys! We are finally in the full swing of fall in my neck of the woods! And I couldn't be more excited! The weather is cool and the leaves are changing! With that brings my favorite fall season... Halloween! So today's tutorial is inspired by the the alien groot and a combination of a sugar skull sunflower. Quiet a interesting combination! I made this guy a little while back but it has taken me forever to get around to posting it. So here we go!

The groot base was made using aluminum foil as a filler. However, this could easily be made half cake on the bottom and then foil for the arms and details. As we worked our way up, we kept his head hollow for the insertion of a tea light and also he can be used as a candy bowl on top his head!

Icing Images wafer paper and their spray Paper Potion was used to cover the foil and create all his textures. After the paper was on and dry, I painted him with a mixture of paint and lemon extract. You can find Icing Images products here: https://www.icingimages.com

For his eyes we used green wafer paper and I used a simple tea light to light them up from behind.

For the sugar skull, I used the skull mold from sugar geek to create a white chocolate skull. I first filled the mold with chocolate only on the surface. I then placed it in the freezer. after it was hard, I filled it with buttercream and cake. Then another layer of white chocolate to seal it. Back in the freezer it went until set hard.

You can find the skull mold here: https://sugargeekshop.com/product/chocolate-skull-mold/

I used Roxy & Rich color dust to highlight the skull. I also used this on the Flex Frost sheets from Icing Images to dim down the yellow Americolor I had painted on.

For the sunflower petals I used Flexfrost sheets. I had to paint white chocolate on the back to make them stand as the FlexFrost is too soft. If I was doing it over I would have just used wafer paper for the petals as well. Oh Well!

I highlighted the center of each petal with orange dust. The orange dust was also used to make little florets inside the sunflower and around to frame the skull.

I used a little more white chocolate to attach each petal to the skull.

When it was all done I used a hot metal circle cutter to melt a hole in the bottom of the skull the same size as the pvc pipe. I then used a little more chocolate to adhere it onto the pipe.