So I have a lady bug and cupcake cake to make this weekend that might be a little bit over my head. I've already started making gumpaste flowers and lady bugs for the cake. My question is what is disco dust and how do you get it to stay on the gumpaste without getting it wet? I don't want my colors to run by getting it wet to apply the dust. I have some glitter dust but don't really know how to get it to stick.......any suggestions??? If i do need to get disco dust where can you buy it?

Disco dust/pixie dust is very finely ground plastic glitter. It is for decoration only and is not edible, although it is non-toxic so that it can touch something that will be eaten. It is adhered to something using piping gel, shortening, meringue powder mixed with water, or gum glue. You can buy them thru globalsugart.com as well as other online retailers.

I don't know exactly what you mean when you talk about "glitter" dust. It sounds like another name for disco/pixie dust, so all of what I said above applies.

Cake sparkles--made by Wilton and other and available at Michael's, JoAnn, Hobby Lobby, etc.--are colored, dried gum arabic and are completely edible. You can grind them fine by putting them in a small tea strainer and grinding with the handle of a wooden spoon or spatula. The melt on contact with water, so to get them to stick, a thin coating of shortening works nicely. If the icing is buttercream they'll stick on contact, so no need for anything else.

HTH
Rae

Thank you so much! I have glitter dust I guess. I'm going to try to just make this work with a thin layer of shortening since it's on gumpaste they aren't going to be eating it anyway. Thank you for your help I was a little worried on how I was going to get it to stick because it did disolve with water.

You can also put the wilton sparkles in a thumb grinder to get them really tiny - works like a charm! I keep one filled with the white ones all the time in my cake supplies.