I've always baked and cooked. Taking things into work for my colleagues as we can't possibly eat it all at home. One of my colleagues was leaving and I was asked to make a cake. So I made a practice 2 tier cake and then a week later my first 3 tier fondant covered cake ( it is in my pics blue and white circles) and that was that. A year later and Im in the middle of a Fireman sam cake. The figure is made and drying and I decorate the fire engine tomorrow. It seems to have snowballed and although I am absolutely shattered I still enjoy getting home from my job and sitting in my kitchen playing with icing (so long as it cooperates otherwise I am likely to have a fit a 2 year old would be proud of). So it kinda found me and I'd like to think my cakes have improved but I have a long way to go, I've learnt everything from CC and I thank everyone for that.
Hanx

I was the worse person to be a kitchen when I was younger. I wanted so badly to be able to bake and cook, but nothing turned out (it was a running family joke). So didn't I shock the heck out of them when I decided to go into culinary school (I was determined to learn to cook/bake).

I took a Wilton class the summer month before school started to curb some boredom I enjoyed it but I figured that I'd never be able to get to the stage of doing caking professionally.

I did some cakes on the side for friends while in school, but never thought much of it. Then some of the girls (okay a lot actually) that I became friend's with couldn't stop talking about how much they love the idea of making cakes, and how they want to be pastry chefs/Cake Decorators. I'm thinking they must have this amazing talent/skill set that I lack to have that confidence. In our baking classes (our Pastry Chef happens to be a Cake Decorator) we did some cakes, and I watched my friends... they didn't have any skills that I didn't...

So I decided to make my sister's birthday cake this past February, then I had some friends ask me to make them a baby shower cake, then I discovered CC and I've been hooked ever since. Now my boyfriend wants to build me a shop (we own a building with commercial space) and everyone I know wants me to make them a cake!

My son. At 2 weeks old we found out he was allergic to dairy. At six months we found out he was allergic to nuts and eggs. For his 1st and 2nd birthday's I decorated simple cakes for him and bought beautiful decorated cakes for everyone else. Seeing how much he wanted to eat the Blue's Clues cake at his 2nd birthday was so sad. I decided that would never happen again and took a wilton class before his next birthday. I managed a not so great pirate ship for his 3rd birthday. When he looked at me in disbelief and said "this is my food?" it was priceless!

Had thought about cake decorating YEARS and YEARS ago so I did a birthday cake for a family child (a barbie pan), while I was doing it I thought " I could really get into this". But never had the time. Due to the economy for the past few years I lost my job and as jobs were-and still are- hard to find in my area, I decided to make a cake for my SIL birthday that was coming up. So to the kitchen I go, I did her the Coke button, surprised her at her bday dinner and got quite a response - she started trying to take cake orders in the restaurant! Checked into Wilton classes a few weeks later and completed them earlier this year. Orders are starting to dribble in now!

My mom used to do some really creative cakes for me when I was a kid (y'know, a roller skate made out of that old wilton 3-D bunny pan, that kind of thing) and I continued doing it for my stepkids when they were little. I've always been described as "the arty one" and had a background in graphic design/advertising. Also owned my own stained glass business, did beadwork, etc.

Now I'm a SAHM to my 4 year-old daughter and over those four years, my creative outlets have taken a real beating. It's difficult to find the time to work in my workshop when my daughter can't be in there because of toxic materials and sharp stuff. But cake? That I can do!

I've baked since I was little, took a few Wilton courses and am now on my way. Luckily, I live in one of the few states where I don't have to be licensed for a home bakery. Now my daughter can not only share the same space with me, but can decorate cupcakes at the table while I create at the counter.

I'm new, but I'm ambitious.

I made a cake for my boyfriends birthday last year. I'm not particularly good in the kitchen, but thought I could pull a cake together. I bought the frosting in a can from the store and colored it green. It oozed all over the cake by the time he saw it. It was so pitiful looking that we went out and got cake at cheesecake factory instead. A couple months later, I got a flier in my bag from Joanne's and decided to sign up for cake decorating. I've been hooked since!

My great grandmother used to do cakes for a living. She had seen a rose petal tip demo, however, couldn't afford to buy it at the time, and went home and made her own tips! I hope someday I am half as good as she was.

I've always liked to bake, but it was always the 9x13 iced in the pan. Then for my son's 2nd birthday, we wanted to do a dinosaur theme and I really wanted to make the cake myself. So, I spent hours searching for the cake I wanted to make him - a 3d stegosaurus. I made it, everyone loved it, and so it began...

I'll start by saying that I've always liked to cook, and I've always been into decorating and design. So...one day, one of my co-workers brought a cake to school on a teacher work day. Being the nosy-rosy that I am, I had to ask her what it was for. She showed me the cake and some pictures of cakes she'd done while taking her Wilton classes. I was amazed. My sister was getting married in a month (small but beautiful beach ceremony), and in my head I was thinking - had I taken those classes, I could have made her cake! As a teacher I have the summer off, so I said that I would take the decorating classes once I finished graduate school. I'm a girl of my word, so I did it and have been infatuated with it every since

My mom took Wilton Courses when I was 4 or 5 and I loved watching her practice and make the cakes she did. I always wanted to do the courses, and 9 years ago I did...and a year and a bit later I started teaching Wilton at a local Michaels with a picture of my 6th birthday party (Holly Hobby cake) as my reminder where I came from. I spent the first 2 1/2 years of decorating using only a hand mixer!

Now I have had 3 students become instructors and I have hit a milestone with 1000 students....and have been inducted into the Wilton Hall of Fame. I never dreamt I would come so far!

Some 30 odd years ago a friend and I decided to try taking a cake decorating class. Just for the fun of it. Wilton course at that time was.. 1 night a week, for six weeks. You started out learning simple borders and the last class was how to assemble a wedding cake. I am not sure that we ever had to bake a cake for class! Needless to say, I was totally hooked. My friend not so much. I still can't believe how it has changed my life. A lot of what I know today is from reading books, magazines, pouring over every Wilton yearbook, TV cooking shows etc. I must say my mom was a good cook and baker, so I guess its in my blood.

My first attempt at cake decorating was when my younger brother turned 10 years old. At the time, myself and my family were living out of state temporarily and running a mom and pop motel-- not the kind of work that you can take a day off from, exactly. Anywho, not wanting his birthday to go uncelebrated (since 10 is a milestone, double-digits!) I planned a whole day filled with small presents, a pimped-out "birthday ride" (I decorated my car, inside and out, with birthday stuff, even masking-taped a slice-of-cake shaped pinata to my hood)---and the crowning jewel was a 3D cake made to look like Lightning McQueen. It was a bloody mess, but after that I was totally hooked!

I started when I made my daughter's first b-day cake and liked it but now I am doing cakes more frequently and I think I am getting better I really like it now. I have never taken a course.

I have always loved to bake, but i had never done cakes or anything like that. Then for my sisters 19th birthday she wanted a big topsy turvy cake so we found a picture from "pink cake box" and i took it to a cake lady in vancouver, she quoted be over 500 for this cake (i was a little shocked to say the least) and i just said to my mom "it doesnt look that hard i think i could do it" soo i did.. i started teaching myself and with the help of everyone here on CC..i made her cake and everyone was amazed. and know all i want to do all of the time is make cakes!
Thanks CC for the answers to questions and inspiration!

my mom made and decorated cakes when I was younger...she could have owned stock in Wilton! LOL! I just loved it and started doing it also.

what sparked my interest in cake decorating was on one of my mom's birthdays when i was oh about 16 or 17 i decided to make a cake and since she loved green and purple, i made a purple dinosaur on her cake (still in the pan) and fashioned the dinosaur with nothing ut a kitchen knife thinking the whole time- there has to e something more we can do with this.. and thats the thought that got my cake decorating hobby sparked..

years later i saw Martha Stewart making a basket weave cake with candied pansies on it and i learned how to do that decorating method just y watching that show.. i was hooked since.. i got to be quite the wiz at making icing with a hand mixer in record time lol even cake batter till i got a nice KA ... (it just recently had an accident, its 15 yro!)

I always loved to be in the kitchen. Got my first recipe book from my grandma when I was 10, she wrote a LOT of her favorites in there. Over the years, I would make cakes, cookies, cuppies for friends and later my kids. Last summer my mom signed me up for a Wilton class and I have turned into a crazy, crazy cakin' lady. I absolutely LOVE trying different recipes. It's fun to dream about making it a business later but now, that is just a very distant dream. I stumbled across this site a few months ago and have learned SO much. I love it!

I've been cooking and baking since the days that my Mom would have to pull a chair up to the counter, just so I could reach it. My Dad would eat things that I made that the dog wouldn't eat and say that they were so good. My Mom was a fantastic cook and baker so I guess it's in the blood. I love what I do. From the day I made my first cake I was hooked and there was no going back. I have customers that tell me that they need a cake and to do what ever I would like. I like that trust. I have never had anyone complain.

I've been baking or helping bake since I was about 4 years old. I've always been in charge of desserts for family dinners, so as the years went on, i wanted them to look prettier...I guess my interests just increased and I decided to take the classes at Hobby Lobby/Michael's. Then I realized i could make a little extra cash doing it. I just really enjoy baking desserts, cooking and decorating cakes.

I've been cooking, by myself, since I was 9 year old. One day when I was 12, I picked up one of my mom's old Betty Crocker Cookbooks from the 1950's and taught myself how to bake. I started to decorate shortly afterward when I saw my first Wilton Yearbook.

Not to make you pull out the violins, but my upbringing was anything but normal or happy. Cooking, baking, and cake decorating was my way of buffering some of the negativity. Even though I have taken small hiatus' from decorating, baking has remained a large part of who I am. Still to this day I not only bake to satisfy my own sweet tooth but it still functions as a method of stress relief.

I also believe that cooking, baking, and decorating is a form of art. People are creating EDIBLE WORKS OF ART and I just think its so fascinating!!