For all of you perfectionists our there - repeat after me...
"I"M NOT PERFECT AND THAT'S OKAY!!!"
ahh.. I feel better now!!! I just had to get that out. I'm tired of criticing (sp?) myself to death. I'm tired of looking at my photos and being sorely disappointed after looking at the cake central galleries. And I'm tired of all you guys doing the same thing to yourselves!!!
Ladies, you know what?... we don't have to be perfect, it's ok! Every cake is one of a kind and that little mistake you just made, consider that your signature! think to youself "I did that on purpose!" "Now everyone will know who made it!" haha. I had this attitude on my last cake, I just went for it with reckless abandom and you know what, sure it wasn't perfect, but I had a lot of fun doing it! We all need to give ourselves a break, loosen up and have some fun! We are making cake - not art that will be around for all of eternity... our art gets eaten and all the mistakes disappear

Charming, I admire your ability to make this statement and mean it!!!!!!! You go!! I am working toward that goal and some day...maybe, just maybe, I should achieve that goal.

Me too... I don't care either. As long as whoever is getting it enjoys it then I am happy.

It has to fun, we are not here long enough to be doing things that are not fun

Here, here!

Thanks, I needed that! Now if I could just get up enough courage to post my pics...

I just made one of those cakes with the Kit Kats around the sides and the M&Ms on top. I ran out of Kit Kats about halfway around, so I used some Pirouette cookies. Then I ran out of cookies, but I tied the ribbon on anyway. Was it perfect? No, and no one cared. It was delicious, and my company thought it was beautiful. Some of my guests (dieting) even requested a piece from the side without the cookies or candies. Perfection is over-rated.

Post away - Rachel. My pics are no award-winners, but they are the best I can do. I post them anyways because I am happy with what I have done. I know they pale in comparison to 90% of what's on CC, but I am not a pro. I do what I can. So please, post your pics.

Not to criticize, but I love how you misspelled perfect in the thread title. Did you do that on purpose?

I have to say whenever I make a mistake, I immediately think "dang it!" But then right away I start thinking about how to fix it so next time I don't have to say dang it.

We are our own most unforgiving critics & that is a good thing because although no one is perfect & no cake is perfect, we always strive to do better & learn from our mistakes. A wise CCer (can't remember who) once said that cake decorating is not how perfectly you can do it but how well you can cover a mistake, so that only you know it is there. Charming your cakes are lovely & Rachel, don't be silly.......post your cake pictures & to everyone, enjoy what you do & do it to the best of your ability & don't stress.

Perfection is the reason I refuse to make wedding cakes. I can't handle the stress of making them perfect. It's just not worth it. I really need to loosen up about it. Maybe they will be more fun.

My brother is getting married in the spring so maybe I'll offer to make their cake for them.

Rachel, post away! It took me a year to work up the courage to post mine and you know, the members here were so kind with their comments I don't know what I was worried about

A professional Cake Decorator once said: It's not how good you are, but how good you can hide mistakes!"That runs through my head every time I'm doing a cake, otherwise I'd beat myself to death with my perfectionism....

lol-I finally came to realize this myself, just a couple of months ago actually! I had to stop comparing myself with others on here! There are some INSANELY talented people on here whose cakes are flawless! Mine will never be that way until I have more time to spend on them, if I ever get that kind of time But I noticed that the people who were receiving their cakes from me always tended to do the jaw drop-they are impressed and ecstatic over what I made, I should feel the same way. It's made a WORLD of difference in my decorating

LOL... I stress out so much while baking that my husband LEAVES the house for the day and refuses to come home until I have finished!! Every cake I tell myself that I will never do another and then I find it hard to say no when someone asks. I have never taken a class and hope to someday but if everyone else is happy then I guess I am too!!

I'm trying to post my pics (thanks for the encouragement!), but I can't get them to upload!!!

I am definately my own worst critic. I wish I had half the talent I see here on CC. My cakes are surely not perfect and I still complain about the littlest things that no one else sees. I even wanted to remove some of my pics after posting them when I first found CC.

Rachel--go ahead and post your pictures!! We all start somewhere and continue to look for where we want to be, I'll be looking for a very long time...lol.

HELP!!! What am I doing wrong? I go to "Gallaries" then "upload picture". I choose an album, put in picture title and description and choose my saved photo. I clicked on "I agree with terms...upload photo"...then wait...wait some more. Than I get an "error: no picture uploaded" message. I've tried it 5 times. Even tried different pics.

Is the picture to big ?

On posting pictures - sometimes they won't post because they are too big. There are several free online sites that will let you upload a picture and re-size it. One I use sometimes is http://www.resizr.com/.

I had a wedding cake I did once and I swear I stressed over it so much and it was such a simple cake! Then the next week I had one much harder and you'd have thought I was making it for myself to eat. After the experience the week before I made a conscience effort to not get so worked up and I had fun, enjoyed the process, and the cake turned out fine. Not perfect mind you, but just fine. The bride was thrilled and so was I. I think their photographer took a million pictures of it!

Funny thing is the bride on that first cake I mentioned hardly even cared about it - she was super young and it was a very rushed wedding - she never even came over and looked at it while I was setting it up...in their wedding pictures there's like one or two pics of it. It wasn't near as important to them as I made it out to be in my head - something I think about now when doing a cake.

So whenever I start stressing over a cake, I try to remember those two cakes and the difference between how I felt when I did that second cake - it really seems to help.

Charming, thank you for posting this!! I may have to copy & paste or bookmark this I love doing cakes but often feel frustrated and not getting feedback on your work can sometimes tinker with your gray matter (more like your emotions). My sister is always telling me not to be so hard on myself and to have confidence.

There is a funny quote from one of the Dalai Lama's books about food, I thought of it when you mentioned how our art just gets eaten. The quote basically says in Buddhism that food just turns to.....well, you know! I'll spare the precise wording

Thanks!!! I'll give it a try.

It worked!!! Thanks, arosstx!

That's the attitude to have! As a PP stated, as long as the customer is happy...
As far as sharing my photos...I KNOW they're flawed, but I think at least one person will either get an idea for a creation of their own or there may be an aspect of it that someone may be able to use or it may spur someone's memory.... I know I've thought about doing something but by the time play time comes around, forget what it was and looking through remember what it was...but ideas and time to play is like having money when a good sale comes about...doesn't happen often enough!

Thanks for starting this thread!

That's the spirit!, it took me more than a year to post my pics because I was embarrased to showcase my cakes along side some of the magnificent cakes of many of the CCers but when I finally did it I was happy, I got some compliments, some advice, some good criticism, but when someone saves my pic on their favs is the best reward for me, even when I see all the mistakes I did, I'm proud of my recoveries and it pushes me to do my best on the next cake, so don't be shy and share your pics, you won't regret it!

You guys and CC rocks! Thanks for encouraging me to post my "imperfect" cakes. I did learn from each one and had a blast doing it! TFL and for the nice comments!

Hardly any of my cakes turn out the way I had desired; besides never giving myself enough time, there seems to be some inevitable poor circumstance in the middle of my "schedule."

But no matter what I left out or what mistake I made, I learned to never tell the customer--they would never know, otherwise!

I always have a backside and have gotten fabulous at covering up flaws, lol.

And I agree--I HATE wedding cakes! No backsides or flaws allowed. Way too much stress. I lost a tier, once, but thankfully she never even knew. She could only afford a cake for 90 but I threw in the extra tier as a surprise (to feed 120) - oh, well. My good intention fell flat, literally.

I want to join this club!

I have been saying for years that for me, cake decorating is all about the fun, not the perfection. It is going to be eaten. I know there are wealthy people out there who will pay any price for something made perfect, which may or may not look like or taste like a cake. They are not my customers. I love figure piping with buttercream because it goes so fast. It makes fun cakes for my customers and they don't have to pay a fortune for my time.

For the record, I have been decorating for 30+ years, mostly in bakeries. I have decorated thousands of cakes and I have never had a customer complain to me, "oh, you didn't get the icing smooth right here in this spot". They do, however, smile when they pick their cake up. It was made special for them and will be a tasty dessert for their party. I agree with comments I have heard some other decorators say, when I start stressing because there is a peak on one of my dots, then that is the day I will hang up my decorating bags.

Let's have fun with it and make all of those average people happy with the special cake we made for them.

I ain't skeered o' no bridezilla nor her mama! I'd just shufflin' right back out the door they came in. But seriously, I tell 'em what to expect....and perfection ain't one of 'em! "I'll do my best..." nah uh, I'll raise my prices the closer I get to perfect...I'm laughin' now...thinkin' of someone comin' in and demanding perfection with my prices! I'd be like "B*(^h, puhlease! Back the h#$& up!" hahahahahahaha...somethin' tells me because I just said this, I'm gonna be put to the test. Okay...so I won't say b*(^h. I'll think it though.