I think people have used just regular Satin Ice or fondant and allowed it to dry long enough, but if I'm making a bow or an animal or certain figure.. is there something I should add to my fondant to make it stay better? If so, how much?? Should I add it just right before I use it??

Also, I'm looking for a good fondant frog tutorial! Any links or advice would be AMAZING!!!!!

tylose powder. I use something like 1/4 tsp to a pound of fondant. Aine2 has many tutorials on figure making.

If you don't have tylose powder, you can also add ready made gumpaste, like a 50/50 blend. I would add it right before you use it and that way you only have to knead your fondant once. If you need in the gumpaste in advance, your fondant will be much harder to knead when it comes time to use it.

I have to drive 45 minutes or order on-line to get anything but Wilton products. If Wilton is what is easily available to you, you can add their "Gum-tex" product to the fondant.

Tylose powder, CMC, cellogen, gum arabic, gum tragacanth...all these things help turn fondant into a firmer GP substance. You could also try kneading in a bit of cornflour or powdered sugar to help stiffen fondant, but be aware it can get too dry if you're too heavy handed.

Thanks everybody!!! I will definitely be using smaller proportions at times so I wasn't sure how much to put!!! Thank you all for the quick replies!!!!

Most of her free tutorials can be found on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/aine2?blend=1&ob=4

What kind of frogs are you looking to do? I recently did a froggy topper (one big frog and three froglets)...pic is in my photos if you want to have a look?

Just to add in ( nothing to do with frogs!) but when you are making figures its often best not to assemble them immediately as the weight of the top half will ruin the bottom when drying eg a person figure - the weight of the torso and head on legs that have not firmed up will result in the legs squashing down and being shorter than you wanted. I make everything and try it out to make sure things are in proportion then disassemble them for a while until they firm up - sometimes as long as overnight depending on what i'm doing. If you do it this way the holes where the spaghetti or whatever you are using to join or strengthen will be made and you can secure them with edible glue. There's nothing worse than spending hours working on something then a few hours later seeing all your hard work (and often swear words ) being in vain.
HTH

Oh and i leave them lying in icing sugar to prevent heads etc going flat at the back!

Thanks for the tip about letting things dry in sugar so they don't go flat...great idea!

I've been working on a Blue's Clues figure for the past 2 days and I've had to redo it twice now because of the way the fondant is drying and the weight issue. I realized that I needed to let the body and the head dry separately.

I wish I had added some of my gumpaste powder to the Satin Ice because it was so soft when I first started working with it. I have a bag of the gumpaste mix that I got from Country Kitchen and I just knead it in like I would corn starch or powdered sugar and it helps, but I wasn't thinking this time around and forgot to do it.

Hopefully this Blue will make it on the finished cake or I'm going to be going to the store to buy a plastic figure.