Most people will use royal icing...there is a good recipe on here but you can also purchase it premade from a cake supply store if there is one in your area. I usually use buttercream (I'm a new fan of indydebi's recipe here on this site) that's been thinned down. Probably the best way, easiest way, is if you have the presses from Wilton that you gently press the pattern into the buttercream/fondant and then you pipe over that. The other thing you can do is to print out a pattern on your computer and then, using a pin, poke thru the paper onto the cake surface and follow those lines. Learning to free hand pipe is hard and takes practice so don't beat yourself up too much. Mine still basically sucks and so I keep looking for ways to practice over and over again so, eventually I'll get better! LOL! One of the ways to get practice is to get some sort of non stick mat and pipe onto that. It will let you know what piping feels like before you go to try it on a cake.
HTH.
Cat
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