I hear if I put all my fondant pearls in a ziplock bag with pearl dust,and shake to coat,it turns out great.and theres no extract or alcohol involved.why are you advised to use dusts with an alcohol base liquid(for painting), IF you can do it dry 
cause I 've got 1354 pearls to coat evenly with dust,and would like the quick version 
Not too experienced, personally. My Wilton's teacher also recommended the plastic bag method. Really all of the pictures I've noticed with the alcohol/dust mixed seemed to give a painted effect, like watercolor.
I'm sure you don't want to waste your dust. Maybe you could try 1 painted with the mixture, and a few shaken in the bag? I have always brushed mine on dry and I've been somewhat happy. I do see swirls from the brush if I look very close. I saw one suggestion about a better type of brush to use. Just haven't had the chance yet.
I make sure my beads are dry and put in ziplock bag with a few drops of vodka and some dust and shake, shake, shake. It works great. The alcohol will help it adhere and dry quickly. If you do it without you will find the color coming off when placing the pearls.
The plastic bag method is the best and quickest, however your fondant pearls need to be fresh...in other words not dried. If they are completely dry the pearl dust won't stick to them as well. I make about 20 pearls then put them in the bag, shake them around, take them out with a long iced tea spoon and place them on parchment to dry. Then I do 20 or so more. It goes pretty quickly...
I did the plastic bag shake method...it worked very nicely but I used a heck of a lot of dust...but the pearls stayed coated well...
Easy and fast...at first I didn't think they were getting coated but there was a magical moment after they got initially covered that they started looking better...
You can see them in a older cake I did..Capt Underpants in my gallery...I added them because I wanted to use them up..didn't match but what did I know then?..lol
good input girls.I always use extracts or rumple minze for painting but I just wasn't sure how well it work in a ziplock.I read a previous post where somebody said you have to wait till the balls are dry and don't use alcohol,which I would assume would fall off.anyhow I will try a few differant techniques to see which works best to my liking.I certainly don't want to waste dust,not at 7$ a jar,I don't have a money tree in my back yard yet 
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