Decorating Bag Tips

This is where all decorating begins. Tips by the score help you produce your favorite techniques—lifelike floral arrangements, intricate lacework, bold shell borders, basketweave designs and more!
These small metal cones are shaped to produce various designs when icing is pressed through them. The size and shape of the opening on a decorating bag tip identifies the basic group, or family to which the tip belongs and determines the type of decorations the tip will produce. Each tip has a number stamped in the tip itself. Within each family, each tip will produce an effect somewhat similar to that of the other tips in the family. On our website, tips needed for project ideas are shown in the tools list. For example, on Bearing Birthday Balloons Cake, you will need Tip: 3, Tip: 8 and Tip: 16 to complete the project.

Round tips

Used for outlining details, filling and piping in areas, writing and printing messages, figure piping, dots, balls, beads, stringwork, lattice and lacework, vines, flower centers and floral work. These tips are smooth and round. View all round decorating tips.

Leaf Tips

Create perfect floral enhancements. The v-shaped openings of these tips give leaves pointed ends. With any leaf tip you can make plain, ruffled or stand-up leaves. View all leaf decorating tips.

Drop Flower tips

Make pretty one-squeeze flowers—these are the easiest flowers for a beginning decorator to do. The number of cuts on the end of the tip determines the number of petals the flower will have. Each drop flower tip can produce two different flower varieties—plain or swirled. View all basketweave decorating tips.

Ruffle tips

Ruffle tips have a teardrop-like shaped opening that yields ribbons, swags, bows, streamers, scallops, ruffles and special effects. View all ruffle decorating tips

Basketweave tips

Basketweave tips are wonderful for woven designs. These decorating tips have a smooth side for making smooth, wide icing stripes and/or one serrated side for making ribbed, wide icing stripes. View all basketweave decorating tips.

Rose tips

Rose tips have an opening that is wide at one end, narrow at the other. Using rose tips you can make a variety of petals that form flowers like the rose, carnation, daisy, pansy and more. Roses are typically created using tip 12 or tip 104 decorating tips.

Specialty tips

Specialty tips add a totally different look! This family includes tips with very distinctive design. Use them to make ring candleholders, deeply ridged shell borders, Christmas trees, hearts, three-dimensional and ridged ruffles. View all specialty decorating tips.

Star Tips

Star tips produce the most popular decorations—deeply grooved shells, stars, fleur-de-lis, rosettes and flowers. The most popular star tips used are numbered 13 through 22. View all star decorating tips.

Multi-opening Tips

Pipe rows and clusters of strings, beads, scallops, even grass and hair! View all multi-opening decorating tips.

Where to Begin

Begin with your basic group of tips—round tips 3 and 12, star tips 16, 18 and 21, basketweave tip 47, leaf tips 67 and 352, rose tip 104 and drop flower tip 2D. A good collection of tips would also include a range of sizes in each family. It's also a good idea to have several of those tips you use most often, so that you don't have to clean a tip each time you change icing color.
Metal tips can be used with decorating bags of any kind. All standard size decorating tips can be used with a Wilton standard coupler. A coupler is a two-piece device that fits onto your decorating bag and holds the decorating tip in place. It's a great convenience when you want to change decorating tips without changing bags, such as when you are using different tips with the same color icing. The coupler base goes inside the cut bag to hold the tip in place, while the coupler ring twists around the base on the outside of the bag to attach the tip. Just twist off the ring to change tips.
Standard tips can also fit on Wilton Tube Icings when a coupler is used. Tube Icings give the decorator a fast way to add small amounts of color to a cake.
View our decorating techniques section to see all the techniques you can create using decorating tips.

Care and Storage

Your decorating tips must be designed for precision and durability. Wilton tips are made of non-rusting, nickel-plated brass. Their seamless design and finely-cut openings will help create precision decorations. The optimal way to store decorating tips is upright, on pegs. This protects the finely cut ends from being bent out of shape. With proper care and storage, your decorating tips will last a lifetime!
To keep tips in perfect decorating condition, wash after each use in hot, soapy water. Rinse in hot, clear water. If bits of icing clog the opening, gently use a tip brush to clean icing away. Air dry, or if using immediately, dry with a soft towel.