I would think most hobbiest have daydreamed about doing their own business but don't take the plunge.

What was it that finally made you take the plunge?

My husband was in the basement, staring into a room we never used. He said "This would be pretty simple to convert to a kitchen." Eight months later (simple is relative, I guess!) it was done and I was in business.... for me it was knowing that he was behind it. I could never do it without his support, and once it became his idea, it was a simple decision for me My plunge was pretty risk free, though- I didn't work outside the home, and I still only work part time with a big minimum order policy, so I'm not exactly working my butt off trying to make it work, just enjoying taking the jobs I want.

For me, it was being so overwhelmed with "favors" and not making any money! I love baking and making cakes that are truly unique to anything around here. I expressed my dream to my husband and FIL, and before I knew it, my FIL had his contractor over here discussing how to turn our carport in to my kitchen, new oven, tables, sinks, and the butt load of paper work that needed to be filled out! The business sort of found me... My favorite quote..."God equips the called..." I feel this is my calling, and he literally through the opportunity into my lap to do something I love, make money, all the while staying at home to raise my kids

When my children were small and I was a divorced mom supporting them by myself, my cake business allowed me to be both mom and breadwinner.

In time they grew up, had children of their own, and I got busy with other interests so stopped doing cakes except for family.

Fast forward to the present. I need to supplement our income in these tough economic times and found I really do miss the joy I found in decorating cakes. Since I am free now to set a strict limit on how many orders I will accept I won't be as stressed as I was formerly.

I really can't wait to get all my ducks in a row and begin taking orders again!

I am like VanillaCoke. I do what I want, when I want. I was a bored SAHM. We have a large home and the first floor was not being used. It still took quite a bit of money... stiff requirements. I just wanted to do something. I love to bake and to cook gourmet meals. I have created and owned three businesses. I learned in college the old saying, "Do what you love...". I have always adhered to that and I taught my daughters to do the same.

Mine evolved from just doing it here and there for people. Thankfully its legal in our state to do it from home, so when I realized, Yikes, I need to be licensed for this...I thought about it for a year or so, and when I started getting enough orders to where I was starting to actually make a bit of profit (i.e. taxes needed to start being reported) then I went ahead and made it a business.

It was a really gradual thing.

"You're as lazy as my contractor, you only do what you WANT to do." Or "You don't have the brains that God gave a cabbage."

That said to me by my boss. The first was when I was trying to verify an order, she was vague and I needed to know what she needed, and that is the response I got. The second was after I put in three weeks straight midnight to noon shifts to make up for the bakery manager being off sick at Christmas. That was it, I left. I worked my a$$ off to improve her cake business and brought in more wedding cakes in a year than she had seen in 20 years!! Now she doesn't have a cake decorator to yell at and can't take ANY complicated cake orders, let alone wedding cakes.

So, I'm renovating the basement and doing it for myself!!

Tami

I am SOO in the same boat. But I do have a full time good paying job with great benefits. I only do MAYBE two cakes a month. But I'm thinking of getting licensed. But then how far do I want to take it. Just imagining having my own bakery makes me feel awesome! I don't know, for me I guess I feel there's a lot of risk involved. I like my current job, but it's not my passion. So many times I think I'd rather be at home working on a cake. LOL! But I just keep praying God will show me if this is what I should do...

Good luck trying to figure that out! I've heard the hardest part is making the decision to do it or not.

Over 25 years ago, I apprenticed and became a baker. I moved from NJ to NC. My children have grown and the last chick is about to leave the nest. I work full time with special needs children but last year, 3 different times, I had the same bakery come to me for cakes. I blew them off twice. I had a job. But when a Christian friend came to me and said "Look, this business has contacted me about this. My arthritis is too bad for me to do this, you really should think about this."
I prayed for guidance and went to see the owner of the business.
Last year between June and October, I made 100 cakes. I live in a very small tourist area.
This year, I knew I was getting so big, I needed to get out of my kitchen. My husband and a friend were talking about this for months, me unknowing about the 'plan'. Friends of ours have a small restaurant and offered me a space all to myself for my bakery. My parents supported me by giving me a little bit of money for equipment, my husband is cooking and doing the laundry when I am caking. Where I live, it is very difficult to get a 'bakery' birthday cake let alone a wedding cake. There is a need, and I have the skill. I have learned so much through cc and for those cakers who share all knowledge of cake craft, I am thankful!
This summer I am booked for two dozen wedding cakes and the orders are coming in weekly. I have based my business on the verse: Psalm 127:1 "Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. "
I can't do this on my own. I am trusting God every step of the way, praying asking for guidance and wisdom, learning as I go. I know with God all things are possible.
I am still working full time at school and when I make the same caking as I do working at school,, it's time for me leave the school.
All of the hours are worth it. (close to 70 hours per week!) I get my hands into sugar and I loose all track of time.
I have been blessed to find two things I love to do: Work with children and bake!

I'm currently a hobbyist but I've always talked about having my own small bakery someday. One of my best friends got sick of me talking about it and just told me to "shut up and drive" so here I am driving. I'm currently in the process of getting licensed. Thankfully I'm in a state/county that allows home bakeries. It won't be full time and I won't take tons of orders but at least I'll be able to pick and choose which orders to take and legally sell cakes.

I always loved baking. back in 2009 I had to make a business plan for a class I was in and decided it would be east to put together a home based baking business plan. A couple of months later, a HS friend started selling her cakes and when I saw it was really that easy to get started I took some pictures and started a Facebook page. One year later, and my portfolio has grown a HUGE amount!

Okay, now she knows, lets back to WHY we want to!

I decided to take the plunge after I worked for a place that did cakes. I finally got the smoothing down, but I thought I had to be as good as Ron Ben Israel to have a business, but the sloppy crap the bakery I worked at was selling like hot cakes. They would always come to me and say, "it's good enough" when I was caking and I knew it could be better. But they turned people away every week. Plus, I was driving 20 miles to get to work when gas was $4 a gallon. And I was only bringing home $211 a week for 40 hours. I can make that in 6 hours now. Plus I don't have to speed to work, or miss my kids or pay for child care or take time out for parent conferences.

Plus, I am a Christian and I was told it was "The stupidest thing I have ever heard" when I told the owner I didn't do "naughty" cakes. (I am fine with bras, but the ones they did were just gross!!)

So now I do what I want!

Well, I'd just graduated from culinary school and had to do *something* with that degree. So 3 weeks post graduation, I bought a booth at a wedding show and talked a good game. The rest is history.

And by "talked a good game" I mean that I told brides I could copy lace and embroidery motifs from their wedding gowns onto a cake. At the time I didn't have the faintest idea how to actually do that.

Now it's my specialty and one of the main reasons brides come to me.

I was known as the resident baker at my ad agency and had just gotten my master's degree the year before (hey...if the job was paying for it I was going to get it). And as I sat there I said...I hate this...all I did was do run around work for my client who KNEW they didn't have room in their budgets for things but I still had to work hours to plan out what they couldn't pay for. So...I prayed and then gave 2 months notice (of course this is when they offered me a promotion and a new office).

My local college had a Hospitality Mgmt program that had baking and culinary and since all my credits transferred from my original undergrad degree I only had to take the fun cooking and baking classes. 2 years later I had ANOTHER degree (nope, I don't plan on going for "the cycle") and one of my baking professors knew someone who was opening a specialty cake company and got me an interview. I got hired the same day I trailed and worked my way up from baker to kitchen mgr within a little over a year.

Then things shifted some and I decided to start my own business. I was able to work out a barter deal with my old job to use their kitchen and when they closed, I found a kitchen to rent and then 2 blocks away found a new building that didn't care if I set up a baking studio. One wall is all windows and I have a fabulous view of the NYC Skyline. This all happened within a years time. Today, I'm quite busy and am actually looking at hiring a couple of ppl.

I'm tired all of the time but God is good and I'm grateful that I have a job that if I'm going to be tired, at least I'm doing something I love.

I love making things pretty! This year I made my daughter's birthday cake and had such fun. Then I made a few cakes for friends. It is relatively easy to be licensed in my town, so I decided it would be perfect for me to do while being a SAHM. Everytime I make a cake it gets a little better...still learning!

Well I took the basic decorating course from Wilton so I could do bday cakes for my kids....
I loved it so much, I am looking to take some classes at the local culinary school and hopefully in about 10 years open a bakery. I work full time as a nurse, so I don't have much time to dedicate strictly to baking, but it's always been a hobby to turn to when things get stressful. Right now, I just do cakes for family but I would love to expand.

NY does have a cottage law http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/FS/consumer/processor.html but there are restrictions.

thought id share too!

a few years ago I was a SAHM. I had this group of lady friends and we were VERY close. almost golden girls close. talked for hours 3 or 4 way or 5 way on the phone, went out together a lot, had sleep overs, always spent special occasions together, holidays together, you name it. even had keys to each others homes. i was the newest member of their little click and was part of it for about 5 years.
Well, one day one of the ladies introduced a new woman to the group. No one liked her, even the woman who introduced her. weird I know. she was her husband's boss's wife. was very snobby and would critisize us for not having her fashion sense and poise, and loved to make fun of all of but not to our faces.
Anyway, the lady was a trouble maker so we all kept our distance. Then one day, she goes and tells all the women of the group that I have been talking badly about them behind their backs, telling all thier secrets, etc. When in fact I had never even spoken to the woman on the phone or even been alone with her.

To my shock and dismay, my friends of 5 years who were so close to me believed her.
One of them stood up for me, saying "we have known her for 5 years now, if she was that kind of person, we would have seen it a long time ago". So they cut her off too.

I tried calling, going to their houses, even emailing them saying put the woman in the same room as me and do a court like setting if we must! at least let me confront her and out her. But none of them would open the doors or take my calls. Looking back I know something fishy was going on...just dont know what.
Anyway, after I was outcasted, I must have cried myself to sleep every day for 3 months. I became very depressed and sad. I had made these friends my whole life, and even my kids were asking me all the time why their kids couldnt play with them any more. Even their kids were the only friends my kids had. The woman who told the lie even took it as far as to go to my kids school and tell them if they didnt kick out my kids she would take her kid out and get them shut down. They didnt kick my kids out of course, but the woman started dropping her son off late and picking him up early just to avoid me.
I was bored, depressed, marriage wasnt going well, had no friends at all, and we were having financial issues.
I had always loved to bake...and figured, well, why not make a business out of it?

I mention that story because I took all that negative energy, feelings, everything, and put them all in my business. I didnt want to think about them, or how I was feeling, or the betrayel, and just engulfed everything into baking and the business. Even when I would be watching tv, if something reminded me of them, I would bake, or update my facebook page, or website, anything to get my mind off them.

I guess I have them to thank for my success. caking had turned into an obsession in a way for a while with me, I was using it as my outlet...and as something to do or think about so I DONT think about them.

I'm still obsessed with caking but for totally different reasons now. last I heard the group had split up, a couple women moved, one's husband became ill and had to move, but the woman who befriended her husband's bosses wife, and the wife, coincidently got "relocated" to london, all expenses paid including school fees.

sometimes I think I would like to run into them...and show them how successful I have become now with none of their petty gossip and such taking up all my time.

I started making cakes, I had a good time, I had to start giving them away to family or I would have gained a lot of weight . Then, there were things I wanted to try, so I'd try new techniques and give them to my mom, dad, sister, grandparents, etc. for birthdays. THEN, people started asking if they could buy them. That's when I started my research to find out how I could be allowed to do that. I found out that, in NC, it is legal from home so I did what I needed to do to be legal and successful.

The decision would not have been so easy if it were not legal to bake from my home. Rent cost, time required to drive to and from rental property, as well as inconvenience of not being able to do 30 minutes here and there after work would have weighed heavily on my decision.

My mother and I used to talk about taking cake decorating classes. That was 40 years ago. A couple of years ago I started the Wilton classes at a local craft/fabric store. I fell in love! I finally had a hobby that produced a non-cluttering result! We could eat the evidence!

I started making cakes for my Red Hat friends birthdays at our monthly meetings. Everyone told me that my cakes were delicious and beautiful (our Queen Mum says my cakes are the best shes tasted since her mother used to make cakes - was I ever flattered!). My friends and family all started telling me how beautiful my cakes were and that I should sell them. So, I sat my husband down, told him I wanted to ask him a question and I wanted the absolute truth. Were my cakes really as good as everyone was telling me? Tell me the truth, dont let me pursue this only to make a fool of myself. (I had visions of those people on Americas Got Talent type of shows. You know, the ones that have been told by friends and family that they are wonderful singers, then they show up for the audition and they are horrible.) He assured me that my cakes were that good.

Now, as of July 1, 2011, our cottage law is in effect in Florida. My birthday was July 3rd. Now hows that for a birthday present?! So I am off to talk with my Tax Collectors office, Dept of Agriculture or anyone else I need to see about getting my Business/Occupational License and a Tax ID # and to see if I need anything more to get started. I am so excited!

I have really enjoyed reading about how all of y'all got started! Very inspiring!