How It All Started!

For many of you who don't know my story, I thought I'd give you a little glimpse.  My cake journey started about 5 years ago when my son was about to turn a year old.  We've all been into Michael's Craft Store and seen the cake aisle, right?  Well I had strolled past that aisle just one too many times until my curiosity got the best of me.  What is this fondant stuff?  How in the world do you put that weird stuff on cakes? And make it look pretty at the same time?  So I bought the smallest box of fondant they sold and turned to Google.  Boy where there a LOT of How To video's and helpful instructions!  I eventually learned how to roll out that small cube of fondant and covered my first cake with success!  I was so excited about my successful first fondant attempt that I went out and bought even more cake supplies.  And watched more video's and read even more How To's.  I discovered that Michael's also has cake decorating classes so I decided to give it a try.  As I sat in these 4 classes, I realized that I had already taught myself how to do ALL of what they were teaching.  Man, what a waste of money but pretty cool knowing that I didn't need to pay for any more classes since I could just teach myself. 

On a more personal note, I was a single mom since the day my son was born until he was 4 years old.  I'm not one to sugar coat things so I won't tell you that it was easy.  We shared an apartment with one of my friends who was also a single mom with a son around the same age.  Looking back, I'm sure she wasn't thrilled with the mess I made in our tiny kitchen with my cake supplies strewn about everywhere but she was nice enough to encourage me to keep going.  My friends and family were also gracious enough to let me create cakes for their birthdays, events, parties...etc.  Eventually I had enough pictures built up to establish a portfolio and put them online.  This single mom desperately needed to make some extra cash!  It was a slow start at first with just one or two cakes a month but it eventually evolved into a pretty decent business.  From starting with cakes, I then taught myself all about cupcakes, cakepops and even the dreaded sugar cookies (I despise working with royal icing!)  So there you have it.  You don't have to pay thousands of dollars to attend a culinary school to know how to decorate cakes.  You just need to have the desire, patience and Google!

Here's my first cake ever made with fondant:    

       

Here's my most recent cake: