Well, I finally decided that I WILL be using royal icing for the flowers on my mother's birthday cake. (I had posted earlier asking if royal icing would be better than buttercream.) Anyway, I will be putting a few roses and several swirl flowers but I keep hearing royal icing is so much better. Any tips or anything I should be aware of before I start? I will be using two colors and I think I read somewhere to finish one color before I start the next or something like that because royal icing gets really hard? Any truth in that? I would really appreciate any suggestions you may have. Thanks!
The advantage to royal is that you can make the flowers well in advance. keep them free of dust and out of the light to prevent fading. It is not necessary to keep them airtight, you want them to dry.
If you don't let one color dry completely, the second color can bleed into the first. In same cases, it would not matter much, in others, it would be bad for the design.
Make sure that you have NO grease on anything. When I get ready to make royal icing, I wash everything with Dawn and super hot water, even though it's already clean. I wash the bowl, mixer, tips, couplers, spatula, you get it, everything, just to make sure that everything is squeaky clean. Grease will destroy royal icing.
I pipe royal icing on wax paper and let them dry. I cleaning everything beforehand but the cleanup afterward is much easier. When I do make royal, I make extra of everything. I store it is a box with a lid to keep dust and sunlight out. If I need to make a quick cake, flowers are ready to go.
Hope that helps.
Time length of royal flowers drying is going to depend on the weather in your area; the type of flowers and how thick it is.
Roses could take up to 2 days!
Swirl flowers overnight.
I strongly suggest you pipe the swirls on plastic wrap. When they are dry all you do is pick up the plastic wrap and they will fall off! 
If they don't come off, a flick on the back will release them. If that doesn't do it they are NOT dry
Time length of royal flowers drying is going to depend on the weather in your area; the type of flowers and how thick it is.
Roses could take up to 2 days!
Swirl flowers overnight.
I strongly suggest you pipe the swirls on plastic wrap. When they are dry all you do is pick up the plastic wrap and they will fall off!
If they don't come off, a flick on the back will release them. If that doesn't do it they are NOT dry
Thanks Kakeladi! Question. When drying the flowers, do I cover them in a box or is it when they're already dry that I cover them?
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