Hi, my friend who is a purse designer asked me to make a purse for her. The purse is leather hobo style bag that is studded with brass and silver 5 mm beads. I thought easy then I went to go buy dragees and found out that you can't buy them in California any more. Any suggestions on what else to use it would take forever to roll balls out of fondant.

Do you have a friend in another state who could purchase them and send them to you? I don't know what else you would use other than fondant/gumpaste balls. But yeah - it'd probably take forever to roll them out depending on how many you need.

How about using a pearl bead mold in the smallest size (4 mm)? Then paint the strand in the color of the dragee (gold, silver, etc). Finally, cut each individual bead from the strand and apply "dragees" to purse. I guess you can use either gumpaste or fondant. Hope that helps.

okay.. this may sound weird.. but it works... go to the liquor store and buy whole pearl tapioca. it comes in small and large. then if you have an air brush.. just air brush them silver. If no air brush...then.. get a jar some vodka or everclear..some silver luster dust.. mix them together.. pop in the pearl tapioca and immediate remove them and let them sit out to dry. I have done this and it works !! you can ues tweezers to put them on the cake to avoid removing any silver dust.. or you can just touch them up with a paint brush. I hope this helps.

In ky I can only find whole pearl tapioca in liqour stores that sell "designer food", cheeses etc...

Another thing that works okay is to get those wilton large nonpareils (they are small pearl sized) that are colored and then make a medium thickness paint from luster or highlighter dust, and then roll them in it and then set them aside to dry. I did that in a pinch one time when I forgot to order dragees for some cupcakes.