I'm a newbie, so be gentle....

How do you get your colors to match when using BC and fondant/gumpaste accents?
TIA

Do they really have to match exactly? Most of the time decos are another shade or color to help them be noticed.
When coloring any icing make note of how much coloring you have added so you can repeat it or just do it by eyeballing
Did you just dip a toothpick into a jar of color & swirl that in OR did you use the tip of a knife and have it rather thick on there? Did you need to add 1/2 a bottle of paste color before you were satisified?

Thanks Kakeladi.
Well, I'm trying to match the BC for piping accents to match the bows. I ususally do the toothpick swirl thing, but that's not accurate for reproducing is it. Any tricks to be more accurate?

They will probably never match perfectly but that is the wonder of different shades of color....It will look great don't worry!!!

I don't work in buttercream, so I can't really comment there, but for fondant, I start with pre-colored satin ice and it makes color mixing and matching SO easy. I don't use any kind of food coloring to do my fondant, I just mix the different ready-made colors together to get the shade I want. I start with my base color and then add a bit of this color and a bit of that color adjusting as needed until it's perfect. So my advice would be to mix your buttercream first, let the color mature, then mix the fondant to match. But as others said it doesn't have to match exactly, just coordinate. As long as the colors go together, you'll be fine.

I know what you are saying... and I have struggled with the same thing... I don't think that there is any special rule of thumb for it. What I would do is make sure that the fondant is the color that you want it... and then just add a tiny bit of the color at a time to the BC... it is better to start out with less and then have to add more... because if you add too much at the beginning then you will have to start all over again. And, it is much easier to adjust coloring in BC then fondant... not so much kneading. I hope that helps! Let us know how it goes!

Thank you Chen for suggesting to do the fondant first, then tint the BC. You're right, less work, and for some reason, I always tried to do the opposite! Stupid thing for me to do, but for some reason I always did it that way. Simple tip. Thank you.

I love this site!!

Chen has the right idea. Keep some extra white icing on hand in case you need to lighten the BC up.

No problem! I love this site too!