Making the Costume... The Rose Petals

Making the rose petals

I decided to make the rose petals myself as I knew exactly how I wanted them to look in my head and I also like to be as creative as possible with my designs.

My first thought was to make them with gelatine, using a silicone mould, however, I soon realised that the gelatine would be too heavy and also very fiddly to work with as it dries very quickly and requires to be heated. So I then decided to use liquid latex, as it is a product I am very used to working with. It is easy to work with, dries quickly with the help of a hair dryer and is a lightweight material.

To save myself a task, I decided to add acrylic paint to the latex, rather than colour the latex petals later with pax paint. I mixed together two different shades of pink (one light and one dark) and added liquid latex.

 

I then brushed on the darker shade along the bottom and around the edges of the petal veiner before blending the lighter colour into the centre.

Once that layer had dried, I lightly dusted with talc before apply another 3 layers. Once all the layers had dried, I dusted with more talc and peeled the latex away from the veineer. I then dusted the front of the petal with a peach powder to add a slight hint of colour and help merge the colours together. The powder also gave the latex the same velvety texture of a rose petal.  I went on to make 300 rose petals.

 

The petal  veiner

I sourced my silicone petal mould from a cake decorating store online. The mould is actually used to mould sugar and icing when decorating cakes and is called a veiner. I thought liquid latex would pick up the detail as well as icing and sugar does due to its runny consistency and it did work when tested. Phew!