[Mrscoolcoolpants]

Save yourself the effort and use dark chocolate buttons with thin licorice for the outlines.

I second ubermum. I made one for DD 1st birthday and I used licorice tape from coles and turned the dark choc large buttons upside down for the black spots or my SIL made one and used freckles turned in for the spots. kids dont care so they?
good luck

[sarachris]

I have done a pink ladybird with freckles for the spots!!! It looked really good.

[KristyMum-]

just beware if you do manage black icing (or blue) for that matter, to warn parents about what colour poo might be the next day! lol

Gel colours (from cake dec shops) can get a good black, usually with ready roll is how I've used it.

I'd tend toward the dark choc/licquorice (sorry, can't spell tonight) just for the simplicty and hopefully less colours/chem stuff.

Good luck, have fun and don't forget to share pics/what worked etc

oh and who says ladybugs have to be black and red
I'd been on a rainbow kinda one, or a 2 colour one that wasn't red/black.

This post has been edited by KristyMum-: 04/05/2012, 10:53 PM

[senimili]

DS made an black ant cake for school fete last year. I got black coloring from either Coles or Woolies at the time not a speciality store but the trick was to add it to chocolate icing to make it truly black. You can't really make black by mixing colours.

Otherwise try one of the icing pens, licorice or other suggestions here.

Good luck.

[JJ98]

Thanks everyone, ended up mixing the red, blue & yellow colours together to make very close to black.(it was for the head so couldn't use licorice).

It looked pretty good and DD was very happy!

Thanks again,

JJ