My niece wants one layer of her cake to be quilted with pearls at the intersections, however her colors are either navy, deep purple or silver. I know I can purchase the silver dragees but can't find the other colors. If I make the pearls out of colored fondant, will they turn rock hard and/or should I ask, how far ahead could I make them so they aren't. I don't want anyone cracking a tooth and knowing our family...doubt anyone would take the time to remove before eating! Any other suggestions would be appreciated also:)! TIA

Mine have never turned rock hard like the store-bought dragees.  another alternative would be the candy pearls that come in several colors.  I've found them at Party City and more recently, Super Walmart.

Conventional dragees are panned and are very hard - think jawbreaker.

There are a new class of "candy pearls" that are more like a sweet tart (not as hard) and come in a variety of colors. I don't know if navy blue is available, but its worth a look.

You can get plain, uncolored dragees and color them yourself - it's not quite the same result, but may be an option for you.

AIf you want them to harden, I suggest using gumpaste instead of fondant. They won't be jawbreaker hard but will be hard. You could do them far in advance as there is nothing that goes bad in gumpaste. The only problem I foresee is that this would be very time consuming if you have to make a lot of them and it could be hard to keep them uniform in size. I might look into other options...maybe even rolling white pearls in purple food coloring. I would test it out by mixing a bit of vodka (just a touch to thin it) with purple icing coloring and rolling the dragees in it. I hope that is helpful. You could also just tell her you will use silver and add purple and navy accents with either scrolling, ribbon or flowers. Good luck!

What about piping dots of royal icing?  I don't have much experience using it but would imagine that would be the best way to get the colours you need.

Thanks for the suggestions! I was leaning towards just dots of RI as cake will be covered in BC-I think that will be the best way to keep the colors right.