I am going to make monograms to put on cupcakes. Is it best to use Royal Icing, or to use fondant, or chocolate?
I am making flags, palm trees and baby blocks.
How far in advance can I make them?

Also, I want to make a cake topper (a big 30) to stand up on the top of a cake. Would I use fondant for this? Any advice is much appreciated!!
Thanks!!!

Gumpaste! or add tylose powder to fondant.

Gumpaste! I print out the numbers from my computer, then using them as a guide, I trace them with an exacto knife.

I used a fun font and edible glitter on these

Adorable picture! Thanks so much! I think I'll use the edible glitter, great idea!
Im still wondering about the monograms, what would be best for that?

Thanks so much for all the help!

If the monograms are going on the cupcakes, I would use fondant or RI.

Tara22,
Love your idea for numbers on cake top, I'll have to try that some time.
THANKS

I second that! Cute!

For the cupcakes, if you want the monogram sticking up, then use royal icing. Otherwise you can use fondant or pipe right on the cupcake. Not sure if I have an upclose example of the engagement cupcakes I did in my photos but you can take a look. Hope this helps.

Tara: Do you remember what font you used for this 16? I have a cake to make for a 16th birthday and have been looking for a nice font to do this with but haven't come across any that I liked. This one is cute!

TIA

I think I used curlz. I had to type in the font size to like 150-200.

HTH

Ok, cool. I think that's the one I used for the number 4 on my Abby Cake. Thanks for your help! And your cakes are beautiful...

I like using Colorflow from wilton. It makes for a nice smooth shinny surface when the decoration dries

here is a picture of one I made recently

Can someone tell me how far the sticks on the letters need to go into the tier. Some people say toothpicks, other people say skewers.

My problem is I have to do a 50 on top of the cake and there isn't a good solid place to put the skewers into the numbers because of their shape...I am really worried they won't be stable enough in the cake.

I won't put them on until delivery but they want to carry the cake out to another room...so I'm worried they will fall over during the walk.

Any thoughts on how to manage the odd numbers and stabilizing them.

I used white dowels (the size of sucker sticks). I attached them to the very bottem of the number with RI, and I left about 2-3" to be inserted into the cake. I put the numbers on the cake before I delivered it and it was fine. I hope this makes since??

That does make since. Thanks Tara!