Short Course · Intermediate · $77
The small flower with the painted face.
Pansies are the filler flower every spring wedding cake needs, and the only flower in the catalog where you finish with a paintbrush in your hand. Learn the petal build, the soft dusting, and the hand-painted whisker markings that turn a competent pansy into a real one.
Skill Level
Intermediate
Lessons
5 lessons
Length
~1.5 hours
Pansies
What You'll Learn
Four skills, one tiny canvas.
Pansies are small flowers with a lot of detail in them. The whole course is about precision at scale, with the hand-painting technique being the wedge that makes pansies look real instead of cute.
01
The five-petal pansy shape
Two top petals, two side petals, one bottom petal, each different. The cutter recommendations and shaping technique that gets the unmistakable pansy silhouette right.
02
Soft dusting in two tones
Pansies are rarely one colour. The dusting technique for the soft gradient (deep purple to pale lavender, deep yellow to cream, deep wine to blush) that makes a pansy feel grown.
03
Hand-painted whiskers
The dark radial lines at the centre of every pansy face. Taught with the exact brush, the right pigment-to-alcohol ratio, and the brush stroke that gives them taper. The only flower in the catalog you finish with a paintbrush.
04
Arranging as a filler
Pansies almost never stand alone. The arrangement technique for tucking them into spring sprays, around bigger flowers like peonies and ranunculus, and as the cluster of small detail that ties a cake together.
Why Pansies
Small flower, big finish.
Almost every spring wedding cake uses pansies, and almost no one features them. They’re the cluster of small detail tucked between the big flowers, the filler that gives the bigger blooms somewhere to land. But they’re the difference between a sparse spring spray and a believable one.
Pansies are also the only flower in the catalog you finish with a paintbrush. The whisker markings are hand-painted, one stroke at a time, with food-safe pigment and a tiny brush. Once you have this technique, it opens up violas, violets, johnny jump-ups, and any other face-marked flower. Painting is a skill that compounds.
“From simple flowers to complex blooms, the courses are well organized and easy to follow.” · Fiona McKnight · Fiona McKnight Cakes
The price is intentional. At $77, this is the cheapest course in the spring lineup, but the technique you learn here turns up everywhere else. A great entry point for anyone curious about the brand without committing to a $147 course right away.
The Curriculum
What you'll watch, module by module.
Four focused modules plus a full downloads vault. Approximately one and a half hours of paced video. Yours to keep, forever.
Module 01
Introduction & Materials
2 lessons
- ▷Welcome & what you’ll be making
- ▷Cutters, brushes & paint setup
Module 02
The Petals
2 lessons
- ▷Cutting and shaping the five pansy petals
- ▷Assembling the flower face
Module 03
Dusting
2 lessons
- ▷The two-tone gradient (deep centre to soft edges)
- ▷Three classic pansy colour stories: purple, yellow, wine
Module 04
Hand-Painting the Whiskers
2 lessons
- ▷Mixing the pigment-to-alcohol ratio
- ▷The brush stroke for tapered whiskers
Downloads
Tools, recipes, painting guide
3 downloads
- 📄Tools & Materials List (with brush recommendations)
- 📄Pansy Colour Stories Reference Guide
- 📄Sugarpaste Recipe
when you're ready
Yours to keep, forever.
Pay once. Watch in your kitchen, on your phone, or with a friend. No subscription, no expiry, no platform that disappears.
Pansies
$77 one-time
Lifetime access. Watch as many times as you like.
- ✓Four focused modules
- ✓~1.5 hours of paced, in-depth video
- ✓The five-petal pansy build from cutter to assembly
- ✓Two-tone gradient dusting taught from scratch
- ✓Hand-painted whiskers with the right brush, pigment, and stroke
- ✓Three classic pansy colour stories: purple, yellow, wine
- ✓Tools list with brush recommendations
- ✓30-day money-back guarantee
If the first lesson doesn’t land for you, email me within 30 days and I’ll refund you in full. No questions, no friction.
What Students Say
“I had never made a sugar paste flower, but I had three months to learn. After failing with the ranunculus watching YouTube, I purchased a tutorial and I learned the technique. She loved her cake, and the photographer couldn’t believe the sugar paste flowers were not real.”
Janet Pinson · Finespun Cakes Academy student
What You'll Need
Almost nothing.
You can start this course with what’s already in your kitchen and at most one quick trip to a craft shop.
The essentials
- ✦Gum paste, store-bought is fine to start
- ✦A ball tool (or a clean paintbrush handle)
- ✦A foam pad (or a folded kitchen towel)
- ✦Floral wire, 24-gauge for the petals
- ✦Florist tape, white or green
The nice-to-haves
- ✦A small rolling pin
- ✦A veining or Dresden tool
- ✦A pair of small needle-nose pliers
- ✦A set of petal dusts, any soft-pink and yellow
- ✦A small paintbrush for dusting
Once you’re enrolled, I’ll send you my full Sugar Flower Starter Kit PDF with affiliate links to everything I personally use. You don’t need it to start, but it makes the second flower easier.
Your Teacher
Hi, I'm Alexandria.
I founded Finespun Cakes in Toronto in 2015 and have spent the last decade designing wedding cakes and teaching sugar flowers to over 1,000 students worldwide.
I trained at Le Cordon Bleu, studied under Ron Ben-Israel in New York, won an American Cake Award, and was named one of Wedluxe’s Top 10 Wedding Cake Designers in Canada.
My courses are taught the way I wish someone had taught me, with every step shown, no gatekeeping, and no rushing through the parts that actually matter.
a smarter way
Why buy one course when you could have all of them?
Pansies is included in the Finespun Academy at $29/month, along with every other course, over 100 studio recipes, all seven studio tools, and live time with Alexandria every month.
After five months in the Academy, you’ve already gotten more than the price of this single course. Most members stay much longer.