At the bakery I work at we use cuticle sticks and make the petals around the stick, lift the rose off with scissors and place on the cake. I made very poor roses indeed with the flower nail and once I got the hang of doing it on the stick, I have not looked back! It's so much easier and nicer this way.
Do you use the nail or a stick?
Depends on the day. Some days the nail works better for me and some days the stick works better. Its probably the icing.
i like and do both ways. for the stick... you have to have a good base wrapped around the stick .. you have to have a good base for the nail.. touch your stick with the 104 tip.... make several wraps around at the top.. then start with the 3 petals .. 5 petals.. then seven more if you want that many.. lots of people stop at 5 petal for their last row.. open scissors, etc... place under rose... turn stick as you lift off rose .. place rose on cake.. close scissors. some people just keep going around base on stick.. and stop when they feel like it is enough.. its just how you want to make them.. hth
When I tried to make roses on the stick, they kept falling off. Do you build the rose at the tip of the stick, or further down the stick?
I use to have this problem. You start the center of the rose at the tip and then make the rest of the petals. Even if the petals slight fall down the stick, once you take the rose off the stick it will come out fine.
Since learning roses on a stick, I can not longer make them on a stick. Also, I find making roses on a 1/4 inch dowel rod sharped it works the best.
I do a wrap around the top of the stick and then two, five and seven petals. The petals I stick to the stick and sometimes they slide down but as stated earlier when you slide the rose off they kinda tighten up and go where they belong. The decorator before me I swear could get her petals almost an inch off the stick and they still didn't slide down! She made some wide based roses.
I do my buttercream roses on a nail, but then I freeze them so that I can just lift them off and place them with my hands. Frozen, they are just like royal icing roses - I can place them wherever I want on the cake this way (even on the side of the cake) except when they come back to room temperature, you don't have to remove them to serve/cut the cake! 
I have always used a nail and it's perfect for me.I haven't tried the stick though maybe i will.
I do my buttercream roses on a nail, but then I freeze them so that I can just lift them off and place them with my hands. Frozen, they are just like royal icing roses - I can place them wherever I want on the cake this way (even on the side of the cake) except when they come back to room temperature, you don't have to remove them to serve/cut the cake!
What a GREAT idea!! I can make really nice roses on a nail, but I can never get them to the cake without destroying them. I succeed with maybe one in ten. I'm going to start doing this. Do you stick some wax paper to the nail and do them on top of that, or stick the whole nail in the freezer?
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