I don't know what I was doing wrong, but, I would appreciate some advice. Until today, I haven't made a buttercream rose in quite some time. (I usually make my roses out of fondant.) I had nothing but trouble. I use a dab of frosting to hold a piece of wax paper on my nail. Then, I pipe the base onto the wax paper. The only problem was, I couldn't keep the base of the rose on the wax paper. I would keep falling off. When I finally got the base to stick, I could keep the petals of the rose to stay on. They would keep falling off.

I am so frustrated and don't ever remember having so much trouble with buttercream before. Has anyone else ever had this problem? Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

It sounds to me like your buttercream may be too stiff. Try adding a drop or 2 of water or milk and trying again.

agree .... thin the icing. also be sure your base is wide at the end. It's a common mistake to make the starting column tall. It should look like a tall hershey kiss.