My husbands grandmother asked me to bake a cake for her. She asked yesterday (mon) and wants it tomorrow (wed). She is making Christmas candy for her church bazaar and one of the women's birthday is Wednesday. She wanted me to decorate it with something to do with candy-making I was so stumped. All I could think of was the scene with the chocolates from I Love Lucy!

I ended up making a few truffles and chocolates and putting them on top and making a bunch of chocolate covered pretzels and putting those around the sides. It turned out ok. Not great. I felt rushed, and I never realized that it really takes me a few days of tossing ideas around in my head to come up with a cohesive one.

What is your creative process like? Sometimes the cake is very prescribed,so there isn't much imagination involved, but the more free reign, the more options, the longer it takes to narrow it down. Then again, sometimes the right idea just comes straight to you and won't let you think of anything else...

Just musing and I would like to hear others' thoughts!

Even if you get the picture in your mind, you still have to work out the details.

My first wedding cake was my daughter's - - I obsessed over that thing for a year! She said "this is our theme and these are our colors and we're expecting X number of people - - go for it!" I knew immediately it was going to be a castle, but didn't have the final design until 2 weeks before the wedding.

My biggest problem is that I can't draw my way out of a wet paper bag, so designing is the most difficult part for me. I need to be able to see it. I'll pull different elements from different photos if I'm coming up with the design. I prefer that the customer have a definite idea what they want - - makes it a lot easier.