Making a Rose

• 1). Place a dab of buttercream icing on your flower nail and place a square of waxed paper on top of the nail. The icing acts as glue to hold waxed paper on your nail. Place a standard coupler in a decorating bag, equipped with tip 12, and fill it with stiff consistency buttercream icing. Hold the bag slightly above the flower nail and squeeze with firm pressure, holding the bag steady as the icing makes a base for your flower. When the base cone is 1 1/2 times as high as your rose tip opening will be, stop pressing and move the bag away from the base.
  
  
• 2). Place tip 104 on your bag of icing. Hold the flower nail in one hand and the icing bag in your other hand. Tip the nail downward slightly and hold the icing bag at a 45 degree angle, touching the wide end of the tip to the top of your icing base. Make the center bud of the rose by squeezing the icing bag with firm pressure as you rotate the nail counter-clockwise, overlapping the mound of icing with a ribbon. Stop squeezing the icing when you reach the point at which you started.
  
  
• 3). Place the wide end of the tip, narrow point up, at the midpoint of the bud. Make a half-circle petal by squeezing the bag as your rotate the nail 1/3 around the base. Begin the next two petals by repeating this step two more times, each time starting just slightly behind the end of the previous petal. You now have your base, center bud and top three petals.
  
  
• 4). Make a row of petals by holding the wide end of the tip at a slight angle away from and below the top petals. Use steady pressure to squeeze the bag of icing as you move the tip up and down while rotating the flower nail 1/5 turn. Repeat until you have made five petals.
  
  
• 5). Create the final rows of petals by holding the wide end of tip 12 below the center of a petal from the previous row, with the narrow part of the tip angled out more than the previous row. Turn the flower nail 1/7 turn as you squeeze the bag and move the tip in an up-and-down motion. Repeat this step six more times until you have made seven petals. Your rose is now complete. Carefully remove the wax paper, with the rose on it, off of the flower nail and set aside to dry. Dry your rose overnight before using it to decorate a cake.
  
  

Making Leaves

• 1). Fill a decorating bag equipped with a standard coupler and tip 67 with medium consistency icing.
  
  
• 2). Hold the bag with the wide opening of the tip parallel to the surface at a 45 degree angle, slightly above your cake. Squeeze using firm pressure to build up the base of the leaf as you lift the tip slightly.
  
  
• 3). Draw the leaf to a point by moving the bag toward you as you relax pressure squeezing the bag. Once the leaf has reached a point, stop squeezing and lift the bag away.
  
  
• 4). Repeat the steps above to create as many leaves as you desire.