I originally put this at the end of another posting but I was not sure if it went out.  

I am making a cake for a wedding this weekend.  They wanted sugar pearls on the tops of the tiers.  At first, I was going to use royal to attach the pearls but I didn't want to make the cake top hard (this is going to be a buttercream cake).  I decided to try piping gel.  I did find a posting supporting that.  However, after thinking about things a little more, I was wondering if there is a good "trick" to putting the pearls on the sides of the cakes?  I didn't want those little pearls bouncing all over my kitchen.  LOL!  

If you have a trick or a tip, I would appreciate it very much!

Use buttercream as glue, or stick them right into the cake while the buttercream is still soft. A pair of plastic tweezers is really helpful to pick the pearls up one at a time. I figured that out after tons of spills over the years lol.

I don't recommend using piping gel. It's just messy and sticky.

I use piping gel because it's very sticky and it's clear. I don't find it at all messy.  I smear a very thin layer on the inside of the piping gel lid and simply pick up a pearl/dragee with tweezers, touch it to the piping gel, and place on the cake.  Easy peasy.

I see pics of cakes where people have used BC or RI to stick on pearls and I do not like that little bit of space between the pearl and the cake.  It's just me being a perfectionist but the piping gel completely eliminates that and it glues the pearl to the BC or fondant beautifully.

The cake is done!  I tried posting it here but it didn't work, so I posted it with the other ones.  I hope it works because I don't think that I have posted a picture since January!  

We used piping gel to make the pearls stick since it had to be covered and not just here and there.  It also had to go about 80 miles, part of it on the interstate which is VERY full of potholes!  I cringed on every one of them!  We only lost 12 pearls!  LOL!  

Side cakes are 2 12" white cakes.  The tiered cakes was a 12, 10 in chocolate and 8 & 6 in white.  We used our cake stacker to transport it.