MBalaska: I just realize you started decorating about the same time I did:) I actually started by doing Panorama (Peek-in) sugar eggs using cans of b'cream (like cans of whipped cream - push the top & out comes a stream of icing). Did those for several years before I made 1st daughter's wedding cake.
@kakeladi, sorry you could make it! Carrot cake next time. It was good with a spoon of lemon curd on the side.
@kakeladi here in Alaska we had one little craft shop in town that had a few Wilton books, you know the big hardback ones, & the annual sales catalog with those pretty ideas. I must have bought half of the pans in those catalogs over the years. But all I did for years was learn to make buttercream roses, & the flat piped flowers on rose nails, and pipe stars & lines on those Wilton pans. Made dozens and dozens of them for everyone.
Once the internet kicked in up here and I learned to "cake play & shop" online I went a little nuts and started trying new things. I made lots of messes, had some real disasters, and some awful embarrassing Ugggly things. It was the continual trials of new and unfamiliar things that leads us to find what we like to do, & what we can do best. It was VHS tutorials before DVD tutorials, before you-tube tutorials. It was books, & cake decorating magazines that I'd mail order that absolutely shocked with the spectacular designs and art & fancy-pants decorations.
The sugar eggs are in one of my Wilton books and they were absolute a failure for me. So yes I know exactly what you mean. Royal icing piped into flowers was such a fun discovery. I had big Tupperware containers filled with hundreds of flowers ready to go. Remember those silly little animals and people that Wilton made with that boiled meringue buttercream?? Such memories.......
My love now is the gumpaste flowers and if I never baked another cake again, I'd still want to sit for hours and just make flowers. Great pastime!
Post a picture of your sugar flowers, @MBalaska ! Who doesn't love to see beautiful sugar flowers?!
My very first cake 4 years ago for my daughters 1st birthday. I had no idea what I was doing! 
One of my latest. Fondant has started to like me a little more lol
Your first cake is cute, @Miss.Reynolds and I am sure was a big hit at the party. Your last cake, howevere, is absolutely awesome! Great design!
had the internet not been invented for tutorials and sharing photos & ideas. I'd still be making another 30 years of piped buttercream cakes. All of them Old School style ~ simple one tier. And make a wedding cake or a 2 tier cake like yours @SandraSmiley haha no way! You ladies are light years ahead of my little cakes.
It would have been wonderful to be at the @kakeladi level of decorating!!!! but everything I made tasted good and that is a positive goal for every decorator, no matter what level of 'pretty' their decorating is at. WOW their taste buds and everyone will be delighted even when they are laughing at the ugly cake.
It's lovely seeing peoples first cake! It's the trying, the doing, the beginning baby-steps that take you someplace new. You don't get anywhere without the first step, and the first few mistakes, and the willingness to step out of your routine. New cake bakers & decorators are very brave and I applaud them for their energy and efforts to take that movement into a new fun adventure.
@MBalaska , your buttercream work is gorgeous! I would give anything to be able to pipe like this. To me, mastering piping is REAL cake decorating and the most difficult. Sugar flowers and figures are so easy (to me anyway) compared to piping a rose and, Heaven forbid, string work! I can't do it but I sure do admire pretty piping!
Thanks for your kind words, @Miss.Reynolds !
ahhh Thank you for the kind thoughts @kakeladi ~~ you know I had many of 35 mm printed photos of those kinds of cakes and have lost almost all of them.
May those people who are making their 1st, 2nd,or 3rd cake for family & friends learn to feel happy about doing that for someone, and a bit of pride for the joy they are bringing to the party!!!!
First ever and most recent @Lorissap89 , your pink cake is beautiful, but your first one wasn't bad at all!
That golf cake isn't bad........the only thing wrong I see (& this is really picky) is the overall icing on the sides is not perfectly smooth. As I said, that's really picky & only mentioned to help you improve which I can see you have by the looks of your rosette sheet cake. Now that is some smooth b'cream :)
Adorable pictures, @aldonza ! Love your bell bottoms :o)
@SandraSmiley yes I wore bellbottoms I'm old lol!
@kakeladi well the post did say 1st ever cake :) lol
@Marian64 thanks :) it was made with an In A Minute Oven
@aldonza , I was 27 in 1975 and boy did I rock some bellbottoms!
My first wedding cake was the cake with pillars and fresh roses between each tier. It was for my grandmother's wedding. I chose a design that was very basic and easy.
The cake with the navy stripes and wood is from last year, and was published on Strictly Weddings.
The cake with the cascading flowers is my latest wedding cake, and features my handmade wafer paper roses.
You have come a long way technically, @Rachel19 , but all three cakes are beautiful. I know your grandmother was thrilled to death with her lovely Cornelia lace cake and it does look delicious!
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