Sugarcraft?!

Sugarcraft?

hi, i want to make my daughters birthday cake this year and im wanting to make a fairy to sit on the top. I though i could make it out of ready made icing, the stuff you buy in a box and you just roll it out and put it straight on the cake.Anyway, its easy enough to mould but then it becomes too soft and wont hold its own and when it dries out, its just cracking apart.Am i using the wrong stuff? any tips ould be greatly appreciated.

Several tips: Much simplified. Because you already have the ready made paste try and obtain a powder called 'gum tragacanth'. Cake decorating shops and even some good old fashioned pharmacists might have it. By adding the powder to your icing sugar paste mix it will help to stiffen and harden it. It's a bit trial and error unless there are some instructions on the bottle. Also dried egg white can help stiffen the paste, again trial and error. The larger the lump of icing paste you use, and the more you handle and work it the more it is prone to cracking. Try using a bit of trex or similar cooking fat to avoid cracking.. Cover your work and paste with cling film whilst working to avoid too rapid a drying out and cracking. Put you model on a piece of clean sponge and prop it into the desired shape with pieces of sponge, screwed up kitchen paper, cocktail sticks etc whilst it dries. To colour it use very small drops of food colouring, if you use a clear spirit like gin or vodka it'll help carry the colour into your work and the alcohol dries away quicker.
The other alternative is to find a specialist cake decorating shop, explain what you want and they will offer you a range of modelling pastes for cake work, ready coloured etc etc. At the end of the day its the love you put into the cake that matters and the photos will remind you of your happy birthday, perfection is only for competitions and people who do competitions have their own many and varied prefered options.