Looking at those wonderful cakes you all had made really make me......."WOW"!

After the Wilton 1 to 3, how did you all manage to do all those complicated
deco on your cakes?? All those pretty figure models etc........My brain just stop at Wilton 3........how did you all go beyond that??!

Lots of how-to books and asking queations here at CC.

Many hours spent here learning from everyone and looking at all the pictures gave me lots of inspiration! And the forums too....there is always something to learn. Actually, I have spent way too many of those hours at the computer 'learning' instead of actually practicing.

...yep, pretty much this site...everyone is sooo helpful!!!

Once you get the basics down, you are pretty much able to teach yourself anything because they are all based on the basics. I also learned most of my skills on the job. I tell people it took me 10 years to get as good as I am because for 10 years, I have practiced, learned, researched, read, practiced, practiced some more. Also get a lot of inspiration from others. Challenge yourself. Even as a professional, I still learn new tips and tricks all the time.

i took the three wilton classes but as i was taking them i was also doing research like going to the bookstore and looking at the cake books there. from that point i became really interested and i wanted to expand from wilton courses. its all really simple to do too. just remember to have fun!

Practice! If you don't want to make tons of cake, get a dummy and use that. When my business partner and I started, we would make a cake, ice it, then decorate it, scrape it, and start over and over... Sometimes the poor cake was in sorry shape after we beat it up, but we got to practice our smoothing and decorating techniques. Each cake you will learn something - we took photos and wrote notes on them too.

Best of luck! At least you can eat your practice cakes and mistakes!

Thanks for all your advices! It a good idea to use a dummy, however, what kind of preparation work do I have to do to the dummy, in order for me to reuse it again and again.....I mean do I have to lay a kind of protection sheet on the dummy before use???