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Hello, my name is Emma and I live in Devon, which is South-West England. I've been cake decorating for just over a year now, before this I have tried jewellery making, silversmithing, wood carving, painting, sculpture, pottery, spinning, weaving, basketry - almost everything! Cake decorating is something I seem to be sticking with. I love the challenge of thinking up designs and then working out how to make them. I love swirls, bright colours and drama and design all my cakes with elements of these - sometimes all three! I am a primary school teacher four days a week and spend one day a week decorating cakes from home. I've just started making a profit on these and only accept about two orders a month - I can't really do more than one cake every two weeks as they take such a long time. I live with my wonderful partner, Ade, and an assortment of feathery, furry, hairy creatures. I have a web-site which features my favourite designs to date: www.emmascakes.co.uk and most of my business comes through the web-site. Most of my clients give me free reign to design often just suggesting a colour scheme or a motif. My favourite customers are those who just say 'Do what you like!' and I do direct people who have very rigid ideas to other decorators. My brain is stuffed with all sorts of cake ideas and I would really love to spend all day every day just bringing them to life! I have no art training, apart from an A-level in art when I was 18 (I'm nearly 31 now) and haven't been to any cake decorating classes as there are none in my area. I sent some photos of my work to UK based Cakes and Sugarcraft magazine and the editor contacted me wanting to sponsor me to have some training and I had a day with Paddi Clark at Squires School in Surrey in December, which was good fun. I did enter the annual Sugarcraft competition in Birmingham, but didn't win anything - in the cold light of day I could see so many faults in my entry I'm not at all suprised! I am running a course in November this year on how to decorate an original and different Christmas cake - I haven't taught cake decorating before (although being a primary school teacher; I've taught pretty much everything else!) and am really looking forward to this. Ulitmately it is my dearest ambition to publish my designs in a book with ideas on how to design your own cakes. I think the joy of sugar work is creating your own designs and seeing those realised. I would love to write the kind of book which inspires people to creating their own designs rather than just showing blueprints to copy, it would be great to help other people experience the kick I get out of seeing my ideas become real. I haven't contacted any publishers yet as I haven't felt brave enough to do so - maybe next year! I love the community of Cake Central and think it's wonderful that I can ask a question and receive so many helpful answers so quickly from people who don't even know me - it restores my faith in people on a daily basis. There are so many talented people who visit this site and it's really something special to be part of that group.
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