20 years! I am a member of a women's friendship sorority called Beta Sigma Phi. Any other Beta Sigma Phi's here on CC? One summer when my son was a baby(he's 21 this year) a sorority sister told me she'd found a 2-for-1 coupon in the newspaper for the Wilton Course I at JC Penney and asked if I'd like to join her, since she knew I liked to bake. It sounded like fun so I agreed. I was hooked from the first minute of the first class. I started making cakes for every occasion and sometimes for no occasion, just for the practice. When I made cakes for my son's birthdays, his friends parents often asked if I could make a cake for their child's birthday. That's how it began. So far I have made ...(I had to go look)... 2066 cakes for other people. Yes, I keep track. It's still fun!

I have to say I was born into it, I am a 3rd generation cake decorator in my family. My grandmother and my mother both decorated cakes. They both only did cakes with butter cream icing and a few basic flowers like the rose, and some drop flowers, My mom learned to do a few other flowers like daisies and bachelor buttons.I learned to make the rose when I was 17 and pregnant with my first child. I had been placed on bed rest and was bored out of my skull when my grandmother showed up with Icing and stuff and said she needed help making 200+ roses for a wedding cake. I learned really quick to make roses that day.

I have taken all three wilton classes so I could do My brothers wedding cake in 2005. I enjoyed the classes so much that I became a Wilton instructor at Michaels A few months later. Before the Wilton Classes I could only do Roses and drop flowers I had done some pretty cakes but was limited to what I knew how to do. I had always wanted to take the classes.

Now I am constantly teaching myself new techniques and buying cake decorating books to learn from. I have also learned alot from reading threads on CC.

I started out watching y mom make cakes when I was very young. She made the "cut up" cakes and then got into the Wilton cakes. She only used the buttercream and such. She had so many cake pans that my step dad built a huge garage to store all her wilton stuff. I started "helping" when I was little and when I was 16 worked in the bakery at Acme supermarket. I loved making the Wilton cakes but after I broke my right wrist I would have to limit how much I could do at a time. I am so loving fondant and gumpaste. I love to experiment and try new things and it is so much fun. I make cakes for friends and family and would one day love to open a shop but not sure about the stress level. I love doing it now but I don't want to get so stressed out that I lose the enjoyment of it.

When I was about 12 years old (1973) I was on a trip to San Francisco with my dad and we watched a decorating demonstration in Macy's and I told him that I wanted to learn how to do that. When we got home he told my mom to get me into a class. So she found a class offered thru a night time adult education program...but I wasn't old enough to take it...so she had to sign up for the class and was allowed to take me along. Hahaha she never touched a decorating bag just sat as my "assistant" each class. The instructor took me under her wing and completely stocked me up with supplies like crazy.

A few months after that class I sold over 400 panoramic eggs, sold my first wedding cake a few months later and was busy making 2-3 cakes per week before I was even a teenager

Then I moved to the middle east and was swamped busy...still only a teenager and ended up doing full blown catering and cakes for expat's. Unfortunately when I became an adult life took over and I became a boring banking executive and dropped out of decorating for the next 25 years..but I'm back in the game now and loving it.