I am doing 48 cupcakes for my nephew's birthday party 1/2 with red icing and 1/2 with blue. I hate how both colors turn your teeth colors and stain so I thought about using wilton color mist but I've never used it. I'm not sure how many cans to buy to cover that many cupcakes. I had planned on doing white buttercream and straying them red and blue. All suggestions are greatly appreciate!!!

Have you tried letting your icing rest overnight so the colors can deepen? (that way you won't need as much gel color) 

I also find I like using Americolor if I'm trying to get red over Wilton (if that helps) i use super red + tulip red

Or using red sprinkles and blue sprinkles if you didn't want to buy multiple cans of mist?

(i don't think you need too many since you're covering cupcake tops and not a whole cake but just trying to think of some other options for you)

I agree with BeeBakes in terms of letting the icing rest overnight. However, I use the Wilton color mist all of the time, it doesn't stretch far so if you go that route, get 2 cans of each color. 

Thanks for the advice!! I am going to start doing a few test runs on a few things tonight see what gets me the best result.