Hi all - never posted before but I'm stuck and I figure you guys will have some ideas for me!
I foolishly agreed to make my SIL's wedding cake and she was fine with whatever was easiest for me but that she wanted her base fondant colour to be teal and her accent colour is black. I wanted to surprise her with something special so I'm making cascading white butterflies down the three tiers, with a few small flowers with silver dragees here and there.
My wonderful husband got me a Cricut Cake for my bday so after some failed experimenting with gum paste and running out of time for practicing I sucked it up and bought the ridiculously expensive frosting sheets and cut out some beautiful perfect butterflies which I have layered and are resting on some folded paper to dry so they will have a more realistic look. They look fantastic but I'm now stuck on how to actually attach them to the cake.
I'm now realizing that my original plan to make gumpaste butterflies with the wire embedded in them and attach them to the cake that way isn't going to work...there's no way I can use wire with these as they are SOOOO thin they will tear easily.
Can I attach them with royal icing? How would that work with the fondant - will it break it down? I am probably using MMF...the only other thing I could think of is using royal icing to attach wires to the butterflies and then insert them into the cake afterwards. Just to complicate things, I have to transport the cake and assemble it on site about an hour away from me!
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!!
you could also try melted chocolate, might be easier than RI?? Just a thought! No idea though really I've not had to do this with really thin butterflies
I don't have a lot of experience with royal icing and cakes, I've only ever used it to decorate cookies...how fast does it dry on fondant? I'm looking at adhering at least 2 dozen butterflies to the cake so I'll have to hold each one on until it dries which will take forever!!!!
I wish they were heavier LOL - those cricut frosting sheets are literally paper thin! And more than a drop or 2 of water dissolves them. The butterflies I made are beautiful I'm just getting a bit worried about 1) breakage in transit and 2) actually attaching them to the cake without them disintegrating!
That really sounds challenging! Do you have any scraps left from when you cut your butterflies out that you can play around with? I'm pretty sure that a piping consistency royal won't hurt the Cricut frosting, but you could try using the RI to stick it to something (doesn't have to be cake, you could use an upside-side down cake pan or whatever.) That would give you an idea of how long it would take to stick, and after it sets you can bump it around a little and see if you want to decorate your cake ahead of time or on site.
Please clarify did you use frosting sheets or rice paper? I worry if the frosting sheets will stay stiff? The ideal is rice paper, I'd use RI to attach them.
I used the Cricut Cake brand frosting sheets...it's been 2 days and they are still not stiff! Hoping that by Sat they are harder but if not then it will change my game plan again! Thinking I might make some gum paste flowers and possibly some less beautiful butterflies as a back up plan 
Sorry to say frosting sheets don't dry stiff I suggest rolling gum paste very thin brush with vodka apply your butterfly wing then trim excess then they will dry stiff.
Pilkey, I recently did a cake with butterflies and I used a clear rubber stamp pad that had several different sizes and styles of butterflies on it. Got it in the scrapbook section either in Michaels or Walmart. Anyway, the stamp worked great to make detailed butterfly wings (see my photos). I used gum paste and they dried really fast. You can shape them however you want. I petal dusted mine. The ones on my cake are not all the ones I made so you can't see ones that I made that had their wings up and such--but you can do that if that's the look you're going for. They are very light and I adhered the small ones to the bottom tier with just buttercream. Royal icing would be like cement, so it would work great. Anyway, good luck! You'll come up with something! 
I bet royal icing will do the trick too. I hope everything goes well as planned!
Ok so FYI - cricut frosting sheets do NOT get hard even after 10 days in a dry place!!! They are gorgeous and delicate but just not great for 3D application, they need to be laid flat on a the cake.
They were still extremely pliable the day of the wedding so I just "glued" them on with royal icing and hoped for the best. It sat in the hall for approx. 3-4 hours during the wedding etc. then when I arrived back (one of the first ones there thank goodness) a few of them had just sagged and tore right off the cake Luckily I had a piping bag of icing just in case stashed under the table and I was able to fix it! And luckily I had taken some pics before that happened as well! Next time I will definitely be using gum paste - just have to get some practice in first!
Here's a pic of how it turned out...
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%