I got started in cake decorating when I went with a former sister-in-law to help her order her wedding cake. We're sitting in this woman's living room, looking through the pictures of the cakes she's created and I find myself thinking, "This doesn't look hard! I can do this!" I went out and bought some bags, some tips and a Wilton book and taught myself cake decorating. That was almost 30 years ago.

When I first began doing this as a business, I was so ignorant on how to do it "right". I worked out of my home, advertised in newspapers, printed brochures, etc. (Health License? You need one of those? No kidding?). There was no such thing as CC to help us new kids find out how to do it the right way. Heck, there wasn't even an internet back then!

I stopped doing cakes for a few years, but resurrected the business about 5 years ago. My married daughter and my neighbor talked me into it, with the idea of the three of us being partners. It was not just cakes, but also catering. They soon saw how much work it was and dropped out, leaving me the sole owner, which turned out to be a great thing for me. With just a couple of ads on the internet (such as The Knot), the business began doubling and tripling each year, enabling us to move from a temporary location into our own shop in a small strip mall.

This is amazing to me because I have no culinary degree, no formal training, not even one Wilton class under my belt and somehow I've had 2 cakes published in ACD and Mailbox News, I've written a weekly newspaper column on how to plan weddings, and I was contacted by Bride's Magazine for input for an article they were doing. My niece, who manages a cafeteria, asked me one day how I learned to run a catering business? I told her I had no idea ... I just started doing it.

I found CC accidentally while I was goofing off at work (it was the week of July 4th and most of our customers shut down for the holiday week so there wasn't much work) and came across a link that brought me to the FBCT tutorial. I thought the FBCT technique was AMAZING!!! Then I ventured into the CC forums and galleries and I was totally hooked from Day One! I had never seen cakes like these before and it was the same feeling of excitement I felt as when I did my first cake.

When I found CC, I was a 25+ year Buttercream Only decorator. Inspired by the many talented folks on here, I've actually ventured into FBCT, ganache and recently, yes, even the dreaded fondant!! I learned more in 18 months of CC sharing than I had in my 25-30 years of hands-on cake decorating. How bad is my addiction? Out of curiosity, I sorted the memberlist to see the top ten posters. I was amazed to find that I hold the record for having the most posts!

The one thing you'd never guess by looking at me is that in 1991, at the age of 32, I won a "Mrs." Beauty pageant. I am the mom of 3, the gramma (or as they call me, "Banna") to 2. My oldest daughter and my only son both joined the military right after high school. She went to the Army, and my son is a Sgt. in the Marine Reserves, after serving 2 tours of Iraq in the regular Marines, and being decorated twice, including The Purple Heart. My youngest daughter's trivia is that she is named after me and her initials spell her name (D.E.B.) I have been married to my soul mate for 20 years. We moved to Indianapolis 10 years ago, from the small Indiana hometown we both were born in. It was a transition for all of us, but I love it here!

Debi Brim
Cater It Simple
www.cateritsimple.com / www.bannascookies.com