Hi,
I bought a set of lily nails and tried making flowers with the wilton royal icing recipe. They turned out horrible! The icing drooped and would not end nicely when I stopped pressure. I threw the whole batch out. Any tips from you pros out there???
Susannah 
Sounds like it might have been too thin. It needs to be pretty thick to keep it's shape.
Debbie
Mchelle is right there too! It does take a while to beat it up to the right consistency. Try using less water too. You can always add more if you need to.
Deb
I'd made the icing, reserving about 2 Tbsp of water as the recipe called for to make it thick. I beated (is that the right word?) for 8min. Keep the tips coming ! 
Thanks - I appreciate it!
The recipe from my Wilton book is 3 tablespoons meringue powder, 4 cups confectioners sugar and 5-6 tablespoons of lukewarm water. Mix 7-10 minutes on low speed for a countertop mixer, 10-12 minutes on high speed for a portable mixer, keeping it covered with a damp cloth. The foil is also inserted only partway for some flowers. Does this help?
When mine isn't thick enough I put more powder sugar in it. When I start to use it & it isn't thick enough I put 1 t. of cornstarch in it. Sir is up really good then try it. If it's still too thin I add a little more cornstarch. It works & makes beautiful flowers!
Also, when you add water make sure you run your finger all around the measuring spoon before you add the water to your bowl. Water tends to bead up & running your finger around it gets rid of all the beaded up water on the spoon. This should help! It works for me!
I wish our teacher (Wilton class) had suggested using cornstarch to thicken the frosting we had in class when several of us had frosting that was slightly too thin. We had cornstarch there in class for the daffodil flowers. Anyhow, thanks for the tip, TCTurtleShell, I will use that in future if I run into that problem!
~AngelWendy
daffodils are my favorite flowers 
.. I stop and smell them everytime I see one and I'm walking. 
Would love to learn to do one. What tip do you use and is there a tutorial on them? and a better question is are the harder then a rose? if they are I am in big trouble! 
I found an area on Wilton that shows how to do them, but was wanting an actual tutorial.
Here's the wilton way for making daffodils: http://www.wilton.com/decorating/basic/daffodil.cfm
Daffodils are a piece of cake, flayvurdfun. I got it on the 2nd or 3rd try.
One other comment on the royal icing. I have a kitchenaid stand mixer and have found that I have to beat mine on medium-high speed (not low) for about 7 minutes.
Happy Baking!
Yeah...I am actually impressed with myself... I think... I just got out my frosting that I had left over...no its not a real solid consistency so things drooped BUT even with that it looked like a daffodil...but the "circular motion" step I'm not sure about because how do you get the rings from looking so ringy? 
BUT I think I can say those look like flowers... they were green, but hey, it was for practice and I had green frosting! 
I'm glad to see your using left over icing to practice Flay~
The rings are supposed to look ringy. You just start out with a small ring then get bigger as you go. Just make sure that the icing is touching the last ring you did or it will fall off. I love making those royal icing flowers! There so easy & so much fun!
Now that you feel you've gotten the daffadils try the other flowers! Primrose is another very pretty flower & you can use all kinds of colors to do them.
Have fun!!
how do you do a primrose? INFO INFO !!!! Please!
Look on the Wilton site. The have it there too. It is probably the easiest flower to make. Well I think it is. Just look, you'll find it. If I have time I'll look too.
OK, I will look....my favorite flowers are those that come out of a tip with not needing much skill from me....ha ha just kidding....I dont have a lily thingy, so I guess I will have to wait!
Oh by the way TC, I see how you are...you've seen my cakes and you are glad I'm practicing to do better so it wouldnt hurt you so much to look at them....I see I see!
Hey I have to use the frosting some how.....I wont put it on a cake now if I want to eat the cake, but to practice yeah!
You don't use a lily nail for the primrose, just a regular flat top flower nail. I mean MAYBE you can make a primrose with a lily nail, but the way I learned was on the flat top flower nail. Here's the link on Wilton.com for how to make Primroses -
http://www.wilton.com/decorating/basic/primrose.cfm
and here is the index page for all the flowers and how to do them as well as several animals and other things you can make with frosting - http://www.wilton.com/decorating/basic/index.cfm
~AngelWendy
Thank you angelwendy....that helped alot...I saved the link to my favorites!
I have seen your pics Flay!!!!! DA!! 
I check out all the pics~ I will look again just to make you happy!!
Gonna look now!!
Oh, forgot you posted on another post that I like surprises.... YES I DO!!!!! I wish that pkg would hurry up & get here!!! I wanta know what's inside!!!!! I will have to send you something too... what would you want from Louisiana???
Talk to you later~ ~TC~
Just your friendship is enough! Remember the card is coming separately!
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%