Hi just wondering how you go about drawing up sketches for the cake designs?

Thanks for your suggestions!

I use paint on my Mac computer.

i have the app Notability on my ipad. i can sketch a cake design and email or text it over to a customer, ilove it!!

Thanks for that!

I've had people say "paint". How do you draw accurate cake sizes I it? Or on the notability on iPad?

On Notability the sketches are just that. They are not accurate as you are drawing with a finger tip or a stylus, but it gives the customer an idea how the cake will look. So far they have been happy with my sketches, but they they have all been birthday cakes, which have more colour in them.

Thanks, so if I draw a 10" and a 12" stacked, will I have to estimate the difference or does it do it?
Sorry I haven't purchased it yet, but wanted to make sure it's what I'm after!

no, its like drawing on a piece of paper, you will have to draw it the best you can. There is a software called CakeDesign Pro, that uses digital images to design a cake, but that is all i know about that, perhaps someone else has used it. I bet there would be some youtube videos on it though.

Ok thanks. Do you have a sample of a cake sketch done on notability that you can show me?

i have this great pen that i just got.  On sale at staples was 89.00 got for 20.00 online its 119.95 its called livescribe echo pen.  you can look it up online at livescribe.com  what ever you write or draw on the special paper you down load to your computer.  At first i was like must be junk but it really works great.  great for drawing or if on the road and get a tip or cake receipt you can write and download when you get home.  The best 20.00 i have ever spent.

AHi clarita i would love to get the pen do you think they still have it? I checked staples website and couldn't find it

you may have to call the store directly since its on clearance that's why it may not be on line.

AI'll do that thank you

Hi, I use Serif DrawPlus X6 for cake sketching.  It is very easy to use and the cakes (which are 3-D shapes) are in the Shape Tools category.  You can draw, color or create various things in the software and use the templates.  It works really well even you can't draw.

It is a stand-alone software that you install on your PC.  The purchase allows you to install on 3 separate PCs.  The cost is $99 but you can always find a 20% off deal or more sometimes on the site.  It runs on WIndows PCs or if you install the virtual on the Mac, you can run it for all the Windows OS.

You can get the software at www.serif.com

It also has great export and inport options.

Hope this helps,

There's a great set of tools at http://bakingit.com that includes a template generator that you can print. You stack up the tiers whatever size, shape and height you want and they'll give you a template you can print.

Also available is a fondant calculator, 3D previews of tiered cakes as well as portion calculations.

(I'm not associated with the site, I just keep losing the link so I decided to comment on it here so I can find it in my comment history next time I can't remember what it's called!)

- Rick

I use the sketchbook app on my iPad. Haven't bought the pro version yet but so far the free one has been fine for me. It lets me export them to my deviantart account as well, which is nice. 

For both sketching layouts and constructing image files for edible printing, I use GIMP ("GNU Image Manipulation Program"). It's not exactly Photoshop (in fact, it can be downright "lame" at times), but it's free (both "free as in speech" and "free as in beer"), and it's available for WinDoze, Mac, and Linux.