So I've never worked with it before and I made one of the tiara's from the great article here for my neice's first birthday. It turned out pretty good and is all set to paint, but I am scared to death to put anything wet on it! I saw with some test pieces what plain water did.

I am using Wilton Pearl Dust
and maybe Wilton Cake Sparkles as that is what I have available to me.
I have clear vanilla, and a couple flavors, as well as lemon juice (but it is yellow so I'm afraid of that) no alcohol here and it might get nibbled on besides.
I'm hoping to get a pretty good coat of color.
I also have several Wilton paste colors if that works better for a more solid color coat.

So anyone want to "hold my hand" and walk me through this a little?

How much liquid to dust? Wet the icing then dry brush it on, or mix then paint? Any other tips or advice?

Any advice? I have searched and looked at all the royal icing posts I can find, and I see how to do it, but not anything on how wet is "safe" and that sort of thing...

Should I just do it? I don't know if I have enough time to get a whole other tiara done by the party if I wreck it.

I have used regular paste colors or pearl dust. I mix it with lemon extract. I put a little of each in a palate tray and mix a little until I get a paint consistancy. I find I get a better color if I color the icing. For instance, if I want silver, I color the icing a light gray, gold, a light yellow. I haven't had any trouble with royal icing, but I don't drench it. Hope this helps.

I'm not sure why the whole thing didn't come through.

I have used regular paste colors or pearl dust. I mix it with lemon extract. I put a little of each in a palate tray and mix a little until I get a paint consistancy. I find I get a better color if I color the icing. For instance, if I want silver, I color the icing a light gray, gold, a light yellow. I haven't had any trouble with royal icing, but I don't drench it. Hope this helps.

I'm not sure why the whole thing didn't come through.

I have used regular paste colors or pearl dust. I mix it with lemon extract. I put a little of each in a palate tray and mix a little until I get a paint consistancy. I find I get a better color if I color the icing. For instance, if I want silver, I color the icing a light gray, gold, a light yellow. I haven't had any trouble with royal icing, but I don't drench it. Hope this helps.

I'm not sure why the whole thing didn't come through.

I have used regular paste colors or pearl dust. I mix it with lemon extract. I put a little of each in a palate tray and mix a little until I get a paint consistancy. I find I get a better color if I color the icing. For instance, if I want silver, I color the icing a light gray, gold, a light yellow. I haven't had any trouble with royal icing, but I don't drench it. Hope this helps.

You can use lemon extract don't use lemon juice. If that is not available to you, try using clear vanilla.

I use pearl dust and lemon extract. I mixed the two together to make a paint texture and then paint the piece. You may have to paint it more than once, depending on how deep you want the color.

LOL Momg9 that happened to me when I posted too, I have to put a return after every pearl dust
to get the rest of the words to show up! (BTW in case someone sees this that fixes these things, the link is broken, nothing comes up when you click it)

Ahh, lemon extract, not juice - that makes sense

For those using the Pearl dust
how do I mix it, thick, more like a paste consistency, so it doesn't get it so wet?

Thanks to you all for your help!

The tiara in my photos is made out of gum paste, but there are a number of fix-it spots with royal icing. I just use vodka (and even if people nibble, the alcohol has already evaporated when it has dried, so there is no worries there... ) and mix it with what ever dust I need to use. The amount of dust to alcohol ratio is all dependendant on what you want. If there is too much dust--the mixture will be thick and pasty and too hard to paint on. If there is too little dust, it will be thinned down too much and you would have to apply several coats to get the color/look you want.

I you have no alcohol, vanilla is just fine--some people have mentioned before that the lemon extract or oil tends to actually leave a taste behind... I don't know because I have never used it.

I use royal icing on my cookies too and paint stuff on them all the time. So as long as you use a clear alcohol based extract ot liquor, you should be just fine--just don't heap it on or be sloppy...

Thanks Missyek that helps, guess I just gotta try it now!

I would use undiluted paste gels and sparklies with vodka, and use a food safe paint brush and spend as little time on the surface as you can. I've never made anything this delicate with this technique, so I can't offer any guarantees, but I sure wish you lots of success!!!

before I knew about using vodka on my gumpaste I would take the paste food coloring and mix with a bit of water and paint on the royal icing I do pansies this way.. It works fine... it does not get the royal icing soft at all... paint just like you are doing water colors it only take a minute to dry. sometime I also do a dry brush technique... mix the color strong and dab the brush on a paer towel and then stipple on the royal icing flower.