I was wondering, what got you started in cake decorating?

I got started when my mom gave me all of her supplies from her days doing wedding cakes for friends. It's a great stress reliever to play with sugar.

⦠Baking for half my life and making super delicious cakes that looked like mud slides⦠Finally decided to reverse my negative mantra of "I can make a tasty cake but not a pretty oneâ⦠Then, long live YouTube, Amazon.com and CC

Watching a friend decorate a cake that I baked for my cousin's wedding.

I picked up a Wilton Yearbook back in 1982, when I was 12, and drooled my way through it. By the time I was done, I KNEW that I wanted to learn how to do that, so I could make my own wedding cake, like I'd seen in that book and a couple of others. Mom and I took a class together as my 12th birthday present, and I've been doing it off and on since then. (more 'on' in the last few years than 'off')

24 years later, I got my wish, and made our HUGE wedding cake. My hubby LOVED it! (yeah, if you look at it in my photos, we had 54 guests. WAY more cake than we needed to feed people, but just enough to make us happy. )

I had a friend who baked (even took the Wilton course in Chicago). I asked her to make my pre-school son's birthday cake, and she made a monster truck. Looking at it, I thought, I CAN DO THAT! So I picked up some tips from her and a lot more on this site, and I haven't looked back since. That was two years ago, and now my days revolve around sugar!

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I like so many others got started when I was planning my son's first birthday party and realized that the cake I wanted would cost a fortune...so, how hard could it be?? LOL LOL LOL I'll just make it myself!! I never did make his cake but once I found this site I have been hooked!!

My grandma used to decorate cakes when I was youngr and I always loved to watch her and thought it was soo neat!! Maybe that had a little to do with my obsession too!

I started decorating after I ordered my son's 2nd birthday cake. I wanted a 3D basketball cake. After convincing the local bakery that they could make this cake for me and that they could charge me a fortune for it, the cake tasted like sand. My DH finally said to me, "Paula, your cakes taste better than this." That's all the encouragement I needed. It's been an wonderful hobby ever since!

My Mom used to decorate cakes (never had a class in her life). I used to watch her and be so envious. I wanted to take classes for over 15 years and mentioned it to my DH one day. He said "Nancy, the only person stopping you from taking those classes is you". That hit me like a ton of bricks I called our local Michaels, and took every class that they offered. I don't know why I waited so long, because cake decorating is now my passion.

I just got started, but we ordered a cake for my sister's baby shower that I found out later came from a Wilton cake pan. The cake was dry, and the decorations seemed simple, so I though - "Well, I can do that!!"

A lady that was supposed to go into her own business decided that she would rather travel with her husband, so she sold all of her deocrating supplies to me for cheap!

And now it's all I can think about! I'd give anything for a million dollars to fall in my lap so I could quit my day job and do this full time!

I needed a new job. I was doing a lot of marketing, graphic design and IT computer work...and was totally burned out. I took 3 months off to try to start my own web design business (back in the days where you could make some really good money doing it) and realized I still didn't love what I was doing.

I saw an employment ad for a local bakery looking for a cake decorator. I had zero experience, other than being "creative" and good with designs and colors. The bakery was nice enough to hire me for $8.00/hr, much less than I had been accustomed to, but I needed something different so I gave it a shot.

Instantly hooked, even though I despised the early hours, the 100+ degree heat (yes, I started in SUMMER!) the long hours standing on my poor feet and my SORE hands, I realized I had some natural talent.

I didn't stay long at the bakery...gotta pay the bills ya know. And now, almost 10 years later I'm driven to start my own decorating business. I have a really good "real" job now as a graphic designer that I absolutely love, but can't stop dreaming about cake. Hopefully I can manage to do both!

Back in 1980 our oldest daughter gave us 6 weeks to the day to plan her wedding. We had very little money for it. It ended up being a mostly 'homemade' wedding.....the bridesmaids, MOG and bride's dresses etc.
Dau saw a cake at a local bridal fair that she wanted. We lived 50 miles from the bakery and they wanted something like $100 just to deliver it plus the approx. $500 for the cake That was way more than we could afford.
Finally the MOG suggested we make a 'homemade cake w/cream cheese icing'. After some convincing Dau said o.k. MOG had some cake decorating equipment stored in the barn. Looking at the one Wilton yrbk she had I decided to make a nice wedding cake for Dau I had never decorated a cake in my life. I ended up making a 4 tiered cake w/satelite cakes connected w/bridges - what Dau wanted. I used 'squiggles' (cornelli lace) w/fresh violets and orchids to decorate it.
Word got around our small town and more people than we invited showed up at the reception just to see this cake!
3 days later I was asked to make a small wedding cake for a gal whos plans for a cake fell thru at the last second. 3 weeks after that I was asked to make another 4 tier wedding cake! I was hooked forever.