Thursday, November 29, 2018

Using Gold Leaf for Quick and Glamorous Holiday Decor


One of my mottos is "When in doubt add honey." Honey is the cure for a lot of things. I could say the same thing for gold leaf. But sweet AND shiny?

Do you even have to ask?



Enter honeycomb with edible gold leaf. I had this idea while talking with my boss about gold leaf. I saw gilded honeycomb in a flash in my mind and gasped. Have you noticed that when you are around creative people or in creative spaces that your brain crackles with new ideas? I ordered edible gold leaf online and in late summer floated my first sheet of gold onto the most beautiful piece of honeycomb. Light shone down from heaven and angels sang. It was a masterpiece. I had to design super simple packaging so it could shine forth in all its glory.


A coworker bought some for her daughter's wedding and while we were discussing how she would use it I had another idea flash through my mind. A gold leafed pomegranate on a platter next to the honeycomb. If you have purchased honeycomb feel free to print out this post to include in your packaging: The Magic of Honeycomb. 


Yes, I do know that people gold leaf things like picture frames and pieces of art. 
But for now let's cover food (with gold). Here's how:

Pay attention, class! I used both edible and NON-edible gold leaf for these projects. 

Edible gold leaf is for anything you will actually eat. You can use regular gold leaf for things like stems or the outside of pomegranates which you don't eat. The edible is harder to find so I don't like to waste it.


For many kinds of food, edible gold leaf will stick readily like it did on the honeycomb. For a cake with fondant, you can lightly wet the surface first to make the leaf adhere. Your food surface should be free of sugar, flour, cornstarch and the like.


Read about how to make this custom table runner. 

For regular gold leaf which I used on the pomegranate and pear stems you use gilding size (a form of glue) brush it on and wait a few minutes for it to become tacky then float your gold leaf onto the size. The gold leaf will stick wherever you put the size. Use a soft brush to push the gold leaf down and brush away the excess. I should warn you that this is an addictive process. 


You can gold leaf a little or a lot. And as you can see this medium plays very well with others and looks great combined with natural elements. Seasonally it's a winner too. Just imagine this urn filled with magnolia or pine branches.


Can I get credit for only gold leafing the pear stems? See I can be restrained. I can edit. But I have to say that a couple of those Japanese maple leaves in gold would have been stunning.


This is so much bang for your decorating buck! Imagine an entire bowl of pears with gold stems! You could show up with that anywhere for a hostess gift and be a rock star. It isn't expensive at all to achieve and takes minutes to do. It's slightly messy but there are worse things in life than having gold dust floating around your house.

XOXO Y'all! 






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