I have a princess cake due in Nov and was planning to do the crown in craft materials like in the picture my client had.....but I would really like to do one out of gumpaste or something else. Im new to cake decorating and have never used gumpaste before! Can someone tell me how to do this or maybe direct me to a good (free) tutorial? Also, is gumpaste the best thing to use for 3D toppers? Thanks for any and all advice!

There's a tutorial for aroyal icing tiara here - http://cakecentral.com/articles/129/how-to-make-a-royal-icing-tiara
I'm actually planning to give this a go in a few weeks. Hopefully it'll work out.

I just did the royal icing tiara this week using the tutorial mentioned. It turned out great--much easier than I expected too!

I also did the royal icing tutorial and it was AWESOME! It looks better the more times you go over it. BE WARNED, it is very delicate. I has gently holding mine and it broke. Make extras.

I have one made with gumpaste:
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1784610/1727319
I made a base and then shaped the gum paste into teardrops and longer shapes and glued them on the base. I did it on a large can of tomatoes (to get the round shape) and let it dry couple of hours and then attach the rest.
HTH

I made one, well actually I made 3 out of Royal Icing, for my Safari Princess cake and two out of three broke, so as said above, MAKE EXTRAS!!!

I would try gumpaste and an extruder. I have made tiara's from royal and from gumpaste and I like gumpaste the best because it is less brittle and more forgiving in regard to humidity. I did find the royal to be easier to make though and if you try it that way DEFINITELY make extra. Also make sure your royal is fresh, I made one using royal that had set for a day and it turned our really weird and powdery brittle.

Good Luck!

I actually made mine out of white chocolate as I found my initial atttempts with royal icing too brittle. I was doing 24 small cupcake size and one larger for top of cake, and my patience was wearing thin when my smaller, more delicate RI tiaras were crumbling in my hands.

I also used gum paste and a extruder and formed it around a small coffee can to get the shape. Tried other methods but this worked the best for me. After it dried hard, I coated it with white corn syrup and white sanding sugar to get the sparkly effect. This crown was handled a hundred times and never broke!
Here is the crown:

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1810650/1810655

Good Luck to you!

Ariel, I love your sparkly tiara! Isn't the extruder the best for tiaras! I just love mine >