I am so frustrated with cake decorating I have actually started rethinking about doing cakes I am slow with cake decorating and I have made some cakes that turned out really nice but the last three cakes I have made I was so dissapointed with . First 2 of the cakes were last minute and I didnt have time to think about how I wanted them to look and the last cake which was a wedding cake that I did for a wedding yesterday well I will never try to attempt to recreate a cake that comes out of a magazine . First of all I showed her my book of cakes that I can do ,,,no problem she picks one I order all the stuff for it then she changes her mind,,,,, then she picks another one out of my book and then she changes her mind again,, and by this time I guess Im not even thinking clearly about it,, she brings me this picture of a cake which did look simply enough to do but the problem was the little gumpaste flowers on the cake were probably made by the decorater at her shop,, and I had to order flowers that were similar but by no means were the same so it throwed off the whole look of the cake boy have I learned a lesson on this cake I will never do that again . The cake was pretty but not pretty enough to me to be a Wedding Cake I will try to post a picture of all the flops later right now Im just to embarrassed to even show them . And I could tell some of the brides family were not pleased with the cake it was a 10-8-6- inch 2 layer stacked cake with almost 300 gumpaste apple blossoms on it I offered to give the brides great grandmother her money back on the cake but she said she thought it was really pretty and she wouldnt take the money back. I will have nightmares about this cake for weeks now major embarrassment there was about 200 people at this wedding so if I get a sale from anyone at that wedding I will be suprised.

Wow - changing her mind twice? Sorry that you had such frustrations!

I, too, am sorry you had frustrations. I looked at your pictures and you should definitely NOT give up. You're cakes are lovely and you definitely had a talent for it. Maybe just decide how many cakes you're comfortable doing for a week or weekend and then just don't take more orders than that, until you're feeling more confident and sure of yourself. But I think you're probably harder on yourself that you should be. I'd like to see this so-called "flops", I bet they are better than you think!

I'm sure your cakes were lovely.

Just take a breather - because you will definetly get 'cake fever' again. LOL it's in your blood now.

Well hon.....not having seen your 'flops' but what you do have in your album I have to say you do have a nack for decorating.
Sure, there are a few things I see that need some fine-tuning but not bad at all (BTW: even after 20+ yrs I had a few flops too!)
Sounds like you are being hard on yourself - maybe because you didn't get head over heals rave comments?

i think we all go through that same thing. do post pictures...i don't think it's as bad as you say. the grandmother liked it, so it must be nice. keep your chin up. if you learned something from this then that's a good thing!

Yes I have learned a lot here. I will never do a cake again without having a meeting and dealing directly with the bride she will have to see everything and approve it before I get up from the table,or anyone for any cake they have to approve it ,and if it is a picture of a cake from a bakery in New York I am telling them no way I can do a cake like that . I called her today and offered my apology many many times I told her I took full responsibility for what happened and I refunded half of what I charged for the cake and offered to do a cake of her choice free of charge , I told her it was my fault for not dealing with her directly . I feel I did everything I could to rectify the situation, I even ask her what could I do to make it right , I just hope I wont get a bad name for what happened.