Hi I am new to cake decorating and I have used petal dust on fondant and gumpaste, but I was wondering in I could use petal dust to paint on crusted buttercream. I would like to be able to do some shading. Not yet able to air brush. any and all help would be really appreciated.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the various dusts:
(And how to use them.)

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-54059.html

HTH

There is a lady on the forum called Thanh Thanh who does amzing work with buttercream. She also gets her buttercream work looking all pearly and shiny. It might be worth checking out her work for inspiration.

I'd like to check out Thanh Thanh's work, but how do you search for a person? I entered the name into the search engine, but only came up with a copy of her cake.

Many thanks for coming to the rescue yet again JanH!

Thanh Thanh's work is amazing.
I remember searching her and threads about her work when i first joined.
she said she gets the pearly effect on her buttercream by airbrushing it (the entire cake) with pearl luster.

if you don't have an airbrush (i don't.....yet, lol), you can use the pme luster spray can (love this stuff!).

diane

Oh my gosh, I used the lustre dust spray the other day and it was fantastic!

Thank you for the help, JanH and Indydebi. I was able to find the member list tab and searched for Thanh Thanh there, but the results said, "Sorry, but that user does not exist." Maybe she changed her user name. Her cakes do sound beautiful, though.

Try these links and hopefully they might work

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo-406863.html

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-forum-userprofile-140133.html

and this

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-photos-by-ThanhThanh.html

Thank you, CakeWhizz. The links worked. Wow, her cakes really are beautiful, and they look so perfect! I figured out why her name didn't come up in the search. I put a space in the middle of the name instead of "ThanhThanh."