We’re gonna make the berries and we’re going to start with the lighter tones of the unripe ones. We’re going to put aside the gum paste we don’t need yet (make sure to keep it in a plastic bag or cling film so it won’t get dry). First we’re going to cut the wires into smaller pieces (5-7 cm) – I cut them into 5 segments but you can cut them longer and then make a little hook at an end using the needle nose plier (I usually line up and pinch several wires with my pliers to save time). We repeat until we have all wires ready. The hook helps to secure the gum paste on the wire so it doesn’t slide off.

Take a small piece of gum paste and roll it until you get a sphere, then insert the hook of the wire in just a bit of glue, remove the excess so that the paper covering the wire is just a bit moist and insert the wire into the middle of the sphere. Secure the bottom by pinching a bit of the gum paste and pull it down the wire, then just twist it in the other direction to remove the excess if necessary.

The next step is to take the tweezers and pinch 5 – 6 times around the top. You can use any tweezers you are comfortable with and even different tweezers for different patterns, it doesn’t need to be exactly like mine. At the end we’re just going to make a small hole in the middle of the pattern and there you go, you have a berry. Super easy!

Now we’re going to repeat the steps until we finish all the berries. They are the same no matter the colour we use. I start with lighter tones and finish with darker to avoid the colour transfer from the more intensely coloured ones to the lighter ones, but it’s up to you (we’re going to dust them anyway).

The real blueberries are not perfectly round nor have the same shape, so don’t worry too much if they don’t come out all round. In fact the ripe ones are a bit flattened and have some irregular bumps so if yours are less spherical the better. We just need to keep the proportions between blueberries: the greener ones – smallest and the fully ripe ones the biggest.

Here we have all the berries, they are pretty aren’t they? And so easy to make. It’s just a matter of practice.

We’re going to start with the green ones and we’re going to mix pale pink and peach. They are just starting to ripe and we need to dust them very lightly. A touch of red will be enough. And there we have a blueberry ready.

Can you spot the difference?

Now we are going to repeat until all of the green ones are dusted.

Second are the peachy ones for which we are going to use a mix of peach, purple and a bit of white dusts.

There are no rules to dust them right, other than start from top where the sun starts to ripe the fruits. You can make different shades of colour bg dusting lighter or using more colour

Again, a bit of red on top looks nice.

Repeat until all peachy fruits are dusted

Now we are going to dust the lilac berries by adding more purple and a bit of navy blue to our mix of colours. The technique is the same. Just dust them in different shades of lighter purple to help them come to life and have a more natural look. When you are happy with the result go to the next berry and repeat until all dusted.

I will let the video play with no edits so you can see the whole process.

The ripened blueberries will be dusted with a mix of purple and navy blue and after we’re going to use a bit of white for highlights

Now we have all the berries ready. Don’t they look nice?

Mix the colours in different proportions until you are happy with the result and then start dusting the back of the leaf to see if they are the right ones. You can always add a bit more of each. Dust the leaves darker in the middle and near the wire and lighter on the edges. Also, add just a bit of red on the edges for a more realistic look. As you dust you will emphasize the veines. Continue until all leaves are dusted and remember to use the darker greens progressively as you move to bigger sized leaves

Remove the excess of dust with a round brush and there you go: a bunch of beautiful blueberry leaves.