Birthday Cakes

When I first started decorating at the bakery back home I couldn't even make a rose. But hard work and alot of practice and determination got me to where I could decorate cakes for all occasions. I could decorate at home and make it look nice and pretty. But I could not decorate with roses and lots of other flowers,borders and other techniques I learned. This learning process was a bit frustrating but mostly alot of laughs. The woman I worked with in the bakery was a very nice kind friend of the family. And as time went on we grew closer and closer. I still call her and keep in touch. She's more than a friend she's family.

So back to decorating the laughter came from the funniest looking flowers we had ever seen. I don't know if all people who decorate go through this but I would think so. I hope they had as much fun learning as I did. Now the borders might look like they would be easy. Looks can be deceiving. It took a while to get them as perfect as possible.

Now once I got it down to what would be in my eyes half decent I started putting my cakes in the display case for sale. And they sold. I was just as happy as can be. Now I worked in thiis bakery for quite a while. We also had to bake breads,cookies and make alot of other things that went into the deli section of our dept.

I thought we were probably slow most of the time and I would have lots of time to practice. Wrong for it being a small town we were busy all the time. So I got practice in when I could. I also had to make sandwiches and other things that were sold on the deli side of it. Oh and I almost forgot the donuts. That was a morning thing and once you were done with that you might get some practice in.

Now you know how many holidays there are and people buy cakes for alot of those holidays. So starting with Thanksgiving all the way to graduation we were busy. But it was nice I really enjoyed what I was doing and I was getting really good at it.

So they decided to keep me and I wanted to stay. By the second year there we were getting requests for special cakes that we did not have decorations for. So we would come up with different ways to make the customer happy and if they liked what we came up with we went ahead and made their cake.

Since it's a small store in my home town we didn't have all the current things to decorate with. Just some sprinkles and decorating kits. The kits were nice because they had everything for example if you wanted a princess cake you picked the kit of the princess you wanted and inside you got a small princess figurine and other little things to tie the whole thing together.

We also had the rice paper images. This is the easiest way to decorate and some of them are beautiful. They are nice when you're busy and you need to get cakes in the display case. I prefer the ones that take my own personal touch.

I don't think I mentioned this before but I love to sketch. I've been doing it since I was very young. I had hoped to be an artist one day but things didn't pan out. And now that the tumor has taken most of my vision I don't know if that's an option anymore.

Cake decorating is fun and relaxing and very enjoyable. Unless you have to make a bunch of cakes in a short period of time. Then it becomes stressful because like anything else you panic and get all worked up. But if you can stay calm and focused you can accomplish it.

Now the photo you see is a picture of a cake I made by drawing it out. That probably sounds strange but that's exactly what I did. I drew the picture on the frosting with the back of a paint brush and then I filled it in with frosting. Easy enough right well it was and I realized at that point I was not utilizing my love of sketching with decorating.

So for the rest of the time I worked there I made the traditional cakes with the flowers and all that stuff. But my favorites were the ones I got to draw and decorate with my own sketching skills. That was a great thrill. I guess it seemed like I was an artist but instead of using paint and an easel, I used frosting on a cake.

When I became ill I had to leave and I was so sad to stop the decorating. i still do it at home from time to time but with bad vision they don't look so pretty. But for the time I got to do it I loved it. And I wish I would have had a little more time to create some works of art.