I made a tiara/crown out of royal icing to top my daughter's birthday cake. I put some rhinestones on it to jazz it up, but it's so stark white. I have some Wilton Shimmer Dust but I'm not sure how to apply it to the dried royal icing. Any tips/ideas/help would be tremendously appreciated!

Next, I would love to do a quilting pattern on the top tier of the cake as well. I hadn't planned on using fondant but will if it's easiest. I'm making MMF for accents, so I can use that. what's the best way to get a clean quilt pattern without a mat? I don't have one and don't have time to get one either

Thanks so much for your help!

Apply the dust with a large soft brush (like a blush or powder brush).

I never use an impression mat for diamond quilting, because I don't want to have to buy a ton of different mats to have different sizes of diamonds. Take a piece of stiff paper (like a manila folder) and cut a right triangle out of it. Then use a wheel to trace along the long side of the triangle in even intervals (measured ahead of time) around the cake in one direction. Then reverse the triangle and go in the other direction. There you go!

Ok...this may sound like a REAL stupid question, but how exactly do you measure to be able to do this???

Some people have those fancy divided mats with measurements on them and whatnot... I'm not that sophisticated lol. Here's how I measure: I take a piece of string and wrap it around the base of the cake and cut it exactly to the size of the cake. Then use a ruler to mark even intervals (1/2", 1", whatever interval you want) on the string, then lay it back around the base of your cake and go by the marks on the string.

Thanks Pink! But what if all we have is a ruler. And I have to admit that I'm having a HECK of time trying to measure this out...

I did these two pillow cakes using a flat tracing wheel (looks like a mini pizza cutter but it's not sharp) that I got at Wal=Mart for like 1.09 or something. Anyhow I just did the diamond design freehand.......i started in one corner and went to the opposite and then just filled in with the rest of the lines.....if you look close you can see that they're not PERFECT but nobody at the birthday parties ever noticed!!

WOW! That's beautiful!!! Thanks for sharing!

I'm not having as much luck. Trying to freehand on this thing is killing me! But I'll keep trying. I'll get it sooner or later.

i recently did a cake and i wanted to try the quilted pattern,i also didnt have an impression mat so i just used the side of my spatula to make slanted lines facing to the right and tried to space it out evenly,then just used my spatula again to make lines the opposite way intersecting the first lines
it actually worked[i wasnt sure it would!]and i got the diamond pattern
if you want to see the pic its the blue,pink and white cake in my photos
hth~