I am planning to make a tiara and am just looking for input from those of you whom have made them before...should I make it out of royal icing or out of gumpaste (with extruder)? Is one way better/easier than the other? What are the pros/cons of each, etc.? In general, any info you can give me is much appreciated.... TIA!

Unless you're very good at piping, the gumpaste tiara would be a LOT easier than the royal icing one. And I think it would come out a lot more evenly and be a lot sturdier. Good luck with it - be sure to post a pic when you're done!

I went by this one,

Thanks so much to all FOUR of you for your input. I guess I'll give the gumpaste a whirl. Thanks again!

Yes, extruder or option 3: Chocolate!

But unless you have a mold, chocolate poses the same problems as royal icing: you have to pipe it.

I am also now making a tiara for the first time. I am going to try it both ways. I have started the first one with royal icing and like it. I also tried to do the same pattern in gumpaste, but had a harder time, so what I think I am going to do now is get a simpler pattern for the gumpaste version.

EmmyNoah, you're a braver person than I am! I can just see RI going all over the place in my kitchen!

Actually, I was afraid of the same thing, but no - not at all. You use stiff royal icing and I haven using a number 3 tip and it is working fine. . . so far I did have a couple break on me in the beginning, but once I got the hang of it, it's not so bad.

I've done the RI tiara before and it was pretty easy to do. I just made sure that my design was simple and connected. and never use anything smaller than a #5 tip.

The gumpaste seems more difficult to me just because I don't have a good extruder so by the time I squeeze out a 12" rope I'm done. or if i put "enough" shortening to make it go easier the gumpaste never dries. Also you may have the extra step of having to glue the rope to attach it to itself.

Yay! More responses! Thanks girls!! To me, RI seems "faster" than gumpaste would be but more fragile. I also agree that a gumpaste design needs to be simpler, I think... But really, what do I know? After all, I posted the question on CC! LOL I might just try both as well...I have more piping experience than I do extruding but I like the look of the gumpaste....I'm torn! Chocolate didn't even occur to me...I have limited modeling chocolate experience so I think I can safely rule that out. Thanks all! Please let me know if you have any more ideas/tips/input....