I have a birthday cake going out tomorrow at noon, and I am at a loss tonight. It has a sunset in the background of a beach. On the beach I have "sand" (van.wafer crumbs) & I just remembered that I need to write the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLIVIA!" in the sand. DOH! It won't stick! 
Any ideas on how to do it or is it too late?
Along the same lines, I used gold dust in the sunset, and the leaves of my palm trees won't stick to it. PUHLEEZE help!
TIA!!
Ok, I had the same problem a few months ago. Beach theme, sand, oh no I have to write Happy Birthday.... Well I ended up having to "drop" my lettering onto the cake and because it wouldn't stick, I had to use a toothpick to "cut" the icing away from the tip. I don't know if that makes sense and it wasn't easy but it did work.
I hope someone else has a better idea.
For the birthday message you could:
Pipe the letters or cursive words in chocolate, refrigerate, then place on the sand.
Pipe the letters or cursive words in royal icing, let dry, place on the sand.
Write the message on a piece of paper and mount it to a toothpick. Stick in the sand.
Make a very thin gumpaste sign, write the message on the sign, mount on toothpick. Stick in sand.
I would cut the message out of fondant and lay on the sand or make a fondant penant and use food writers to put the greeting on it.
i would just take my "really clean" finger and write the words in the "sand". the same way you write in sand at the beach.....
Same concept but I would use the end of a paint brush handle. You can do this then write over top of it with icing so the icing is sitting "in" the sand"
Well, here is what I did.
1.) I put the cake in the fridge and went to bed. I was hoping that little elves would come during the night and finish it. I got up, warmed up the green for the leaves in the microwave. The combination of the heat of the leaves and the cold cake made them come out just fine. I was done in 5 minutes. Sheesh!
2.) To get the letters in the sand, I dug the grooves in it with a toothpick (THANKS, JoAnn B!!), and then took my itty bitty piping bag (Thanks for the recommendation, cuchenscm0109!! I love it!!), and then filled in the grooves with dark brown.
Here is the result: It was for my niece's 7th birthday party, and she loved it!
I had the same thing happen with my beach cake and I was so embarressed because of my hand writing. The icing just wouldn't stick to the Vanilla Wafer "sand".
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=705693
darkchocolate
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