I am having an awful time with the icing on the sides of my cakes. It is like it slides down the side and I get a thick layer on the bottom and can almost see through the cake at the top. It looks fine when I put it on. I smooth with paper towel and then 5 minutes or so later it is thicker at the bottom. Also it is sometimes just wrinkly on the sides. I have the worst time doing a 4 in stacked but it also happens on just a regular single layer sheet cake. Help I am about to pull my hair out and give up.

Are you letting your cakes cool completely before putting the icing on? How thin is your icing?

I'm gonna agree with price. It sounds like the cakes might still be warm,or the icing could be too thin. Also, I find that if it is too hot in the room that you're working in the icing tends to get mushy quick, so it could look fine when you put it on, and then a couple of minutes later it can just melt/run. I've had that problem before, and i've also had icing that was too thick so don't fret it happens to everyone. If you're icing seems too thin, then either put a little less milk in it (you can always add more), or put a little less corn syrup (IF you use that to thin the icing to apply to the top and sides of the cake). OK enough rambling, sorry about that..

I'd like to add that if your icing is too thin, you can add more powdered sugar to your current batch to thicken it right up!

Do you add meringue powder to your icing? I know that is a stabilizer and is a very important ingredient. If your not using that, I would add some of that and see if it helps. Otherwise, I would agree with the previous posts.
HTH,
Heather

Sounds like your icing is to thin, just add powdered sugar to thicken it and try that.

What recipe are you using?

I actually think my icing is on the thick side. I use 2 Cups crisco, 4 lbs powder sugar 1 cup water 3 teas of flavoring and 1 tables merg powder. My house is very very dry.

I think 1 cup of water is way too much. For my icing, I only use 4 TBS of water to begin with, and 3 tsp of flavorings - and that's 2 cups crisco and 2 lbs of powdered sugar. That will make my stiff consistency, that I make roses from. To thin it down, I add only a few TEASPOONs of water at a time, about 1 teaspoon per cup of icing for medium and 2 teaspoons per cup of icing for thin.