I am planning on doing a tiara pillow cake, and have read up on a lot of the techniques for the tiara. If I make it with candy melts, can I paint them with silver highlighter? Also, I will be trying to pour sugar gems for this cake for the first time; do I need to use candy colors or can I use regular Wilton gel color in the sugar mixture?[/list]

Yes, you can paint candy melts with silver highlighter. Unless you have cocoa butter, you don't need to mix it with anything. Just brush it on dry. Otherwise, you can make a paint with cocoa butter.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that you can also make a paint with confectioners glaze and highlighter.

Yes, you can use regular gel color in hard candy. Oil based candy colors are for coloring chocolate, which will seize with water-based colors. Hard candy is very different from chocolate. For one thing, it doesn't seize.

I made a tiara out of grey gumpaste and then after it was hard I sprayed it with the new DUFF spray that I bought at Michaels. I loved it. I don't know if I helped you any but thought I would share...
http://www.duff.com/products/uniquely-duff/duff-metallic-silver-cake-graffiti-0

I have a lot of silver highlighter left from another cake I did, so I am trying to use it...I love it so much I swear I'm going to do an entire silver cake, lol. I was just worried how it would react to chocolate. And I have confectioner's glaze, so that works out great, too. I think I'm going to make one tiara out of chocolate and one with gumpaste. I love working with gumpaste but feel like I'll be able to get more delicate details in with chocolate.

I'd love to know how it goes with the candy melts! I did a tiara cake for a friend of mine and I did it out of royal icing and dry brushed it with the silver highlighter. Mine's in my picture gallery

I've made a tiara from chocolate and painted it with silver highlighter+confec glaze. Frankly, I didn't like the look. Too dark and metal-y. I much prefer dry-brushing it onto chocolate. More sparkly.

Hbarberycakes, I love your tiara! Did you use a template? I was planning on drawing one. I'm only making the pillow from an 8" round, so by the time I taper that down, I figure the crown can have a max diameter of 4.5-5"...so I'm going to be tight on space for details.

Hey there! I did, I used a template from this site. Let me see if I can find the link. I taped the template around a tub of shortening to give it the arch of the crown. Here's the template:

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1196371

HTH

Thanks! Now I'm second guessing my pillow size. I was planning on carving it from two stacked 8", but maybe I should do one 10" round and have a thinner pillow so I have more room for the tiara. Just not sure which would look weirder, a small tiara or thin pillow?

I used the ten inch pillow pan from the Wilton set. Maybe you can do a 6" on top of a small cake with drapes over it to look like a ruffle. Just a thought =)

Okay, so I did the tiara. Turned out pretty good. I used the white candy melts, also used poured sugar gems, and then painted it with the silver highlighter and confectioner's glaze, then dusted it with pearl luster dust. Thanks for all of your help, now I just got to get started on the cake. If you'd like to see how it turned out, I posted pics in the gallery: http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1944669
Oh, and it's super strong. I think I only put 3 coats on it. (Knock on wood.)
Thanks for looking, and I appreciate all the advice!