Stupid fondant! I am trying to practice a bunch of animals and techniques with it and I cannot get the hang of making smooth fondant balls for borders. I see such pretty borders done with these posted on here. What is the trick???

its either time, patience and experience, or moulds!
if your doing it your self, a good start is t roll a fondant rope, and cut it into even peices - then you should have the same amount in each ball.
xx

Your hands and fondant can't be too dry, sometimes a dab of shortening helps. Then you have to kind of squish the ball as you roll it around. This is what gets rid of the cracks. Harder at first and then ease up at the end so it turns into that perfect ball shape.

When I took a wilton class she had us roll out the fondant, and cut out circles to make even sized balls. Play around with differnet size cutters to see what size you want, you do not need a very big one.

She also said its good to keep your hands covered in crisco and and coat the mat with crisco not cornstarch when rolling out the fondant

Hope this helps.

I just made 300 fondant balls. I used my medium circle fondant cutter and rolled out fondant 1/8 in thick and cut all my circles out then rolled them into balls with gloves on. And I'm here to tell you my hands hurt afterwards but they were pretty. Good Luck

If you look in the polymer clay section of your craft store, they have plastic bead rollers, easier on the hands and you can get different shapes too (rounds, bicones, tubes, etc)

here's a quick demo: