I personally have had no classes and have learned through trial and error(lots of errors). I am contemplating taking Wilton classes, but am undecided, so I was curious about everyone else's story. I love making cakes for friends and family I have a lot of passion, and a little bit of talent.

I'm self-taught. I think I've checked out every cake book my local library owns. The internet, this site in particular, has been a great resource as well.
Trial and error has been a great teacher, too.

I currently have no plans to sell cakes, though people ask me fairly often when I'm going to go into business. I just prefer decorating as a hobby for now.

I've thought about taking Wilton classes, but at this point, I think I know most of the stuff they'd teach. There are some gaps in my education--my piping skills need work (well, all my skills need work, but there are a lot of piping techniques I've never tried). I think I'd like to take some specialized, advanced courses someday. I've heard Colette Peters' classes are great.

I always wanted to learn how to decorate cakes but I had to wait until my 4 kids grew up with work and all. I took Wilton classes but I am still very much a beginner and a "weekend warrior". to all those who decorate with small children!

I made a cake on friday with "help" from my 4 year old daughter, it is really hard not to squash their enthusiasm or their heads when you are trying so hard and they have a million questions and keep leaving thier platic chair in the kitchen!! I tripped over the damn thing at least ten times! When it came time to transport the 50 pound behemouth I made sure she was strapped safely out of the way in her seat in the van! I love how interested she is though.

I'm currently in the midst of the 3 Wilton courses. I'm also teaching myself a lot through trial and error. I guess I'd be a "weekend warrior" as well.

I too am a "weekend warrior", especially being I have a full time job. My hats off to all those who can whip up great looking cakes to sell; at this point just to sell to co-workers would be ok for me as I am only starting Wilton course 3. Besides, have a large family with lots of birthdays that I can practice on!

deb

I took all three classes and hated every minute of them. I kept hoping they would get better. I don't want to make the perfect rose, or the best basket weave. I want to create cake sculptures and have learned more off this site then I did through all those wretched classes. "Pity my poor instructor dealing with me". I kept saying, that these are the flowers I see at Walmart and didn't want to do what everyone else was doing!!!! I actually didn't go to the last class, just could not bear it. I'm finished now and am happy, happy, happy. Also am a weekend warrior. Now Colette Peters, there is a person I would take a class from!

I started making cakes when my son was born 13 years ago, mainly for his birthday and at Christmas. I only really did it for family and friends until a couple of years ago, then I started making cakes for friends of friends and through that, strangers! I work part-time, but would love to be busy enough to give up my job and do this full-time because I hate my job but I love doing this! I have a 13yr old and a 3yr old, which can make getting time and the space to do anything very rare though

I am what you would call a weekend warrior. I usually go to my mom's house so they can help watch my 2 kiddos. Plus I don't really have any decorating supplies so I have to borrow hers. I've been decorating cakes for 9 years now, but it's like for birthdays and baby/bridal showers for friends and family.

I've been decorating cakes since my son's first birthday cake. He's now 26. I bake and decorate for family and friends. My youngest daughter and I are taking the Wilton classes together. We're halfway through Course 2 and loving it! I've had people request cakes from me who offer to pay me. I'll say sure, I'll do it for cost, just for the experience of doing it. But then I just say no thanks, consider it a gift.

I made a baby shower cake yesterday for my nephew. His mom (my sister-in-law) KNEW I was doing this for free. Her and my brother have been so generous to MY kids over the years, it was the least I could do. Then at the shower, she gave me the nicest thank you card with a gift card for Michael's craft store in it! I was so touched that she did this.

So now...I get to go shopping for some new cake supplies!!! WOO HOO! Cake decorating is so fun. I'm glad my daughter is interested in it now.

I am both! I have a 2 1/2 year old and a 1 year old. So I don't do much decorating during the day. I usally bake the cakes with them at my feet and make the icings and such while they nap. Then I decorate after they go to bed. I started a home buisness at the end of last year selling baked goods like cookies, muffins, cheesecakes and such. I have always baked since I was little and we needed a little extra money without me working outside the home. I got into decorating just recently since I wanted to offer cakes. I have always been able to add a border and ice a cake fairly well, but I wanted to learn some more so I could add cakes to my buisness. I am finishing up the 3rd Wilton course this month, but am already selling cakes! I am mostly self taught, but wanted to learn the Wilton method just to say I have taken the classes. Plus it's a night away from the kids a week! I am going to miss it!

Besides selling a few cakes here and there I am always looking for any excuse to make a cake for free for friends and family! I really need to stop doing that and charge for them! I am pretty much obsessed with decorating at this point!

I guess I'm a bit of both. I am part owner/full time manager of a liquor store, which takes up about 55 hours of my life a week. When I'm not at the store (which adds up to four evenings a week, and Sundays) I'm at home baking either for family, or for customers. I do usually around 1 wedding cake a month (because that's all I really have time for) and 2-3 other cakes.

I'm trying to build up my business, and I try to look like a 'pro' - but I'm really a weekend warrior!

Edited to add: I am also self-taught - I've never had a class, though I'm sure I have plenty of room to improve

I have been decorating cakes since I was a kid (so what if it was cakes from my easy bake oven) I figured out that sandwich bags can double as piping bags when I was 5!!! LOL I have always had a "thing" for art...so I think it just came naturally when i began to get involved in decorating cakes.......I have gotten a lot more excited about the techniques and different mediums available just the last year or so...and can pretty much do anything I put my mind to...except BC roses for some reason!!! Those things drive me nuts!!! So I signed up for Course 1 in Wilton.........and finished my first class last Thursday...and I know I'm going to be completely bored, and probably would have been better suited to start at course 3 since what I really want is to design and make wedding cakes....however I WILL learn to make a buttercream rose if it kills me........or bores me..........I can't believe I have to make a cake this Thursday with piped stars on it!!!! Roflmao!!!!!!!!!! I did the whole star thing like 7 yrs. ago!!! I'm over the stars......they make my hand cramp.......and who's really impressed when you bring them a character cake????? Well I guess maybe the kids are.........but I am like tiptop....I love to do the things peple think are impossible to create out of cake. Like having someone hand you a baby blanket and say............make this pattern....or sculpt a cake to look like this!!! But I WILL MAKE BUTTERCREAM ROSES!!!!!!!!! LOL

I'm a mostly self-taught "weekend warrior" too.
However I just recently got a part time job (T/Th) as an asst pastry chef at a caterers so that is exciting, I will get more wedding cake experience. Right now I keep getting kids cakes orders.

I have been interested in cake decorating as long as I can remember; but like most of you was too busy with working and my 3 kids and their extra carricular activities.

Now they are all grown up and have children of there own; I have more time to do the things I could only dream of doing and cake decorating has been one of those dreams.

I decided to do it the right way one step at a time so I signed up for the Wilton Courses and took all 3 of them and then the Elegant Fondant course. I practiced what was taught until I became comfortable with it and comfortable with the knowledge that I could make the flowers and borders well.

There are other courses coming up that I would like to take as well as some candy courses that would also enhance my knowlege of cake decorating. I am hungry for knowledge on this subject, I cannot get enough and will take what ever courses in this direction that are offered in my area or nearby. I feel the more I know the more confident I will become.

I make free cakes for family and friends as often as I can and enjoy it very much. I occasionally make one and get paid for it so decided that I need to set up some paper work with prices etc. so that the stress level would remain low. Trying to figure out what to charge someone when asked is not comfortable. I hope to turn this hobby into a lucrative one someday soon when I feel more confident about my decorating skills.

In the meantime I practice, practice, practice and take in as many decorating courses and those related to it as I can.

I have my paper work also on the go so that will make it easier if and when business does pick up. I figure once it is set up that is the worse part I could always make alterations in price etc as I go. I have finished my pricing charts, brochures, fliers, and business cards, and also a portfolio is in the making. So I feel very organized. The next step is taking inventory of what supplies and equipment that I have and finding storage for them. Which will happen this summer hopefully.

I have seen on the webb a decorating show, demonstration and hands on in Lansing michigan that I am interested in and may make the trip there to acquire even more skill.

I thing that the bug has hit me and I am now a full fledged ADDICT.

ADDICTED TO CAKE DECORATING AND LOVING IT.

Kathy R.


I really do enjoy this art of decorating and seeing the look on peoples faces when they see what you created.
It is worth everything. It is also nice to finally know how a cake is put together instead of wishing I could make such a beutiful creation I am doing it.

I have been interested in cake decorating as long as I can remember; but like most of you was too busy with working and my 3 kids and their extra carricular activities.

Now they are all grown up and have children of there own; I have more time to do the things I could only dream of doing and cake decorating has been one of those dreams.

I decided to do it the right way one step at a time so I signed up for the Wilton Courses and took all 3 of them and then the Elegant Fondant course. I practiced what was taught until I became comfortable with it and comfortable with the knowledge that I could make the flowers and borders well.

There are other courses coming up that I would like to take as well as some candy courses that would also enhance my knowlege of cake decorating. I am hungry for knowledge on this subject, I cannot get enough and will take what ever courses in this direction that are offered in my area or nearby. I feel the more I know the more confident I will become.

I make free cakes for family and friends as often as I can and enjoy it very much. I occasionally make one and get paid for it so decided that I need to set up some paper work with prices etc. so that the stress level would remain low. Trying to figure out what to charge someone when asked is not comfortable. I hope to turn this hobby into a lucrative one someday soon when I feel more confident about my decorating skills.

In the meantime I practice, practice, practice and take in as many decorating courses and those related to it as I can.

I have my paper work also on the go so that will make it easier if and when business does pick up. I figure once it is set up that is the worse part I could always make alterations in price etc as I go. I have finished my pricing charts, brochures, fliers, and business cards, and also a portfolio is in the making. So I feel very organized. The next step is taking inventory of what supplies and equipment that I have and finding storage for them. Which will happen this summer hopefully.

I have seen on the webb a decorating show, demonstration and hands on in Lansing michigan that I am interested in and may make the trip there to acquire even more skill.

I thing that the bug has hit me and I am now a full fledged ADDICT.

ADDICTED TO CAKE DECORATING AND LOVING IT.

Kathy R.


I really do enjoy this art of decorating and seeing the look on peoples faces when they see what you created.
It is worth everything. It is also nice to finally know how a cake is put together instead of wishing I could make such a beutiful creation I am doing it.

I myself am a weekend warrior at this point. My mom decorated beautiful cakes my whole life and when I was about 8 she taught my 4-H class so I have learned some things over the years. I was never really interested until recently. I am totally addicted to this site and now cake decorating as well. I need a ton more experience but hope to get a business slowly started and reach the pro level. My full time jobs are being a wife and mom to a almost 5 year old son Tyler and 16 month old Emily, along with a 40 hour week emergency dispatch job. I relly love dispatching but would like to be able to have something that I can do from home since I am a want to be stay at home mom. I have to say again that I love this site! I have learned so much and pretty much rely on it since I am not able to take the other 2 wilton classes I was planning on taking! I even got to pass on a few tips that I learned here to my mom the expert yesterday. Thanks to all of you and HAPPY CREATING!

PS I totally am there with the rest of you trying to bake and decorate with the little ones underfoot! My son loves to give me tips and reminders. My daughter wants to be in the middle of the table and has her little fingers everywhere

WEEKEND WARRIOR!! I tell people that i do this "for fun and profit", basically i just want it to be a hobby that pays for itself. no great plans on opening a bakery. i kind of got "addicted" to it when my mom was diagnosed with cancer back in august 05, it just gives me something else to focus my thoughts on. it's hard to be sad while you're making cake also, i have 4 small children (none of them in school yet) so i can't imagine the hours it would take to run my own bakery. i'm happy to do a few cakes per month

I'm a "couple times a year" warrior...if that. I've only done a few cakes, which I've basically just done by winging it. I'm lucky in that I've done a lot with polymer clay, so working with fondant was natural for me. I've never taken any classes or anything, but am thinking about it.

I think i am a weekend warrior but my DH says a professional because I am decorating at our local bakery. I am defiantly self taught. I took what i knew with me to the bakery i work at and a woman who use to own it and still works there part time and has been decorating for 30 years has sat down with me and has showed me a lot and has promised to show me more as i work there longer. so maybe i am weekend warrior on the road to professional.

I'm strictly a weekend warrior. I'm afraid of the tax and health code issues involved in going pro. I do wedding cakes as gifts to the brides. I love the challenge of planning and making the cake. I really don't care how much I get paid. And usually, it's not enought o care about!
I took the wilton classes and they were great, but I've learned so much from this site. Debbi Brown's books are also really helpful.

I started decorating with a friend a year ago ...we just finished the all the wilton courses .. she is very outgoing and want's to make this a business we have been selling to friends ... I currently work part time and have two kids 5 and 6 yrs old .... she will be moving at the end of the school year .. I'm not sure where I'm going with this cake decorating thing ... I'm going back to work full time in the fall so I'm not aggressively promoting the cake business only word of mouth (which is spreading quickly )

in the future I would love to do this all the time ... I'll have to wait until my husband is more stable at work .... keeping my fingers crossed that it will happen for me

I made my first decorated cake in 1972. With the help of the items I bought from the Maid of Scandinavia catalog. (They were the same ones that put out the Mail Box News) It was a 9x13 flag cake that took me 7 and 1/2 hours to decorate! All stars! I never took lessons, I have just tried new techniques as I go along. I had a great following in PA where I lived most of my life. But 3 years ago we moved to NC. It's just been the last 6 months that business is finally kicking in. I now am the only wedding cake decorator for the largest reception place in my area. So it's finally getting busy. I still work from my home after all these years too! Helen

I am a WEEKEND WARRIOR also. My dad always made cakes, so I learned from him. We used to have contests every Christmas. I started making cakes again when my first was born. Now 3 kids (ages 5, 3, 2) later I am constantly making cakes. I learn more with each one. Ellyrae taught me to make BC flowers, so she is my Wilton teacher. LOL I do not have time to take classes. The kids keep me very busy.

I only make cakes for family and some friends.

I work full time in a hospital Laboratory, so I don't have the time to do ALOT of cakes. So I guess I'm with the Weekend Warriors also!

Sherry

i just started the wilton 1 class... it's helped a little in filling in gaps that i didn't know about stuff. i started my cake decorating by using mmf and i made roses and everything just by learning off of this site... i want to get good at using BC now and be able to sell cakes here and there. i just recently lost my job and am 5 months pregnant so i'll have plenty of time to practice and figure out what i should really do after the baby's born

Weekend warrior here too... I work full time & have 2 kids so this is strictly a hobby that SOMETIMES pays for itself. I sell maybe 2-3 cakes a month.

I had never taken a class until a few weeks ago when I started a gumpaste flowers class.

Like a few others, I prefer to sculpt in cake rather than make cakes that look like cake, so Ihave turned down orders for sheet cakes (I figure if this is a hobby, I'm only going to do what amuses me! LOL)

Definitely weekend warrior! I have a very stressful full-time job outside of my home, so sometimes more than 1 cake a week is difficult for me right now. As it is, I usually start on Wednesday for a Saturday cake because I can only work on it in the evenings. My friend and I recently did a wedding cake and we worked on putting the flowers on the bridge a week before! I would LOVE to be able to do this full time, but need to make as much money as I do at my current job, and that's kinda scary! Plus, I would love to have the time to try new techniques as practice, and not because I have a cake to do!