I'm making a wedding cake for Saturday and the client has requested the beading be done in black. The picture she gave me is a fully buttercream cake, with 2 of the 3 tiers being done in buttercream roses, and then beading along the bottom of the top and bottom tiers. If I use black buttercream, will it bleed into the white roses? I suppose I could use tiny fondant balls, but that's not how the picture is... any advice? 

ACan you post the picture for us to see so we have an idea what the cake look likes

Hmmm she only gave me an actual photo, but I'll see if I can find one online. It's just a buttercream cake like the one in my profile picture, but with beads along the seams. 

AI've never worked with black bc on white,only dark brown on white ......maybe you can do a test run.. make both colors of bc and frost something like the back of a pan with some of the design that you are gonna be using on the cake....let it set for several hours to see if the black bleeds, if it does I would do your next idea...fondant

Thanks! I actually just did that! I used a ton of cocoa powder to make the bc as dark as possible, and used very little black. Fingers crossed! 

AXX. Those are my fingers crossed for you...let us know how it turns out:grin:

Done! And no bleeding :)

I'm not 100% sure how to post pictures... so here's a link: 

http://cakecentral.com/g/i/2856187/a/84/

The beads in your picture are buttercream touching buttercream.  No reason to think they would bleed unless you are serving a frozen cake in a sauna room.

If you have doubts, use the icing tubes.  They don't seem to bleed into buttercream.  And there isn't enough to really be tasted.

I understand that, just got a bit nervous as i do with every wedding cake I do!