I love making cupcakes and decorating and not to brag but i'm pretty dang good at it. No complaints yet even from my wild adventures. I want to take this hobby and make it into a little extra money.
I have no idea where I need to start. I livin in North West Arkansas and don't know the laws or anything pertaining to home cooking??

Any tips or pointers or anyone from NWA with advise would be very helpful. Thank you in advance I look forward to the advice.

I can tell people are looking at this. Does no one have any tips for me I can't figure out where to get started I have 50 something recipes and a dream to get this going. Please any help.

From what I have learned over the past few years (and I haven't talked to anyone official) you are not legal to bake at home. That may have changed. There have been some changes this year and I'm thinking there may have been some wording about cakes and such but my advice is call the local health department. They could tell you more info than anyone on here.
My goal is to someday have a cake business too but for now I'm baking for family.

Check into subletting a kitchen from a church, bakery, or restaurant. If there is a farmers market in your area you could start there and build up a clientel from there. Good luck!

thank you both I have figured out that Arkansas has the cottage food law but if you have pets in your house then you still can't bake and sell from home, which is sad because I have a dog. I will look into church kitchens that may work well.

Did you find that out officially? Not that I have any time to actually do it.

If you want to start a business the first step is to put together a business plan, which will cover pricing, product assortment, advertising plans, target markets, competitor analysis, and so on. Depending on the demographics in your area you may find that keeping cake decorating as a hobby is the better alternative from a financial perspective, especially if you need to rent a commercial kitchen.

yes I did find that out officialy the law was passes in Feb. I have also found a kitchen that will most likely let me use it for free. There are only two shops loaclly selling cupcakes besides the grocery stores. I know that this may not be a huge busines to start, I'm just looking for a little extra money nothing major. Just going to start small with the friends that work with family and Farmer's Markets and Flea markets (if thats allowed) and try to get some clients and my name out there. Since I have plently of other income from my job I'm just going to try and see how it goes if its a flop then I won't be in to bad a shape.
Business Plan very good idea for a start I have some parts of it done but not all of it....

FYI, most businesses lose money the first year and don't see a profit until at least 2-3 years out, so don't count on earning extra money any time soon -- but if you are in it for the long haul a business can be very rewarding and reap major dividends down the road.

Be sure to carefully record all the costs you incur during the startup phase of your business as well as ongoing costs (I recommend using QuickBooks unless you decide to hire an accountant), since you may be able to deduct business losses against your other income to reduce your tax liability.