This is so funny. I do not have low self esteem but I have low cake esteem!! I have made many cakes and only post ones I feel are worthy of CC! lol Instead of dreaming of a new house or winning the lottery, I am dreaming of perfect edges and my next cake!!
I call it my delusions of cake grandeur, lol. Everyone raves about my cakes and I always feel like an imposter.
Oh I constantly have delusions of cake grandeur and I always feel like an impostor, especially after looking through CC galleries for "inspiration!"
When I did my sister's wedding cakes last month, I had distant relatives (who didn't know I'd taken up cake decorating) rave on and on and on about the spread, how they couldn't believe I'd done all that myself, and how they were sure she'd gone to a bakery until they'd been corrected. All I could do was think "Don't they notice it's a little lumpy? Don't they see that flaw there or this one here?" "It's not that great; I wanted to do this and this and this like I saw on CC but then reality hit me like a truck."
I should probably take a Wilton class or something; maybe I'll be able to actually start doing some of the cool stuff I see posted here. 
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I'm totally with you on this one. I always wonder if I should post photos too. I've even deleted posted photos that get no hits. You keep posting, girl, you are doing great!
That's too bad you deleted photo's due to the number of hits you got. For starters, those pictures fly by some days.. And people go back to your photos when they are reading your posts, so there is always the opportunity to still receive feedback.
There is no way I would delete a photo because enough people didn't show interest. Who cares, no one is keeping score. I have posted all the cakes I've made since Feb. (with the exception of my Wilton class cakes because they were rush jobs - 1/2 hr is not enough time for me 
) Some of them were cute, others not so much..I even posted one that was tilting! But I post them for me to see my progression. While it's nice to get a compliment, I just like one central location I can go to, to look at what I've done so far. 
i got my oven 8 months ago. never baked before that. never done any cake decorating or what-not. and i actually got to the point where i almost gave up. i mean i practice and i just can't get anything right or perfect and i started thinking maybe this isn't for me. when i look at the pictures here i just am so impressed by the talent and here i am, i can't even bake a cake right yet and i have dreams of making beautifully decorated cakes? who am i kidding right?
but when i think about it, i haven't been doing this for a year so i have a long way to go and i have to stick with it. eventually i want to have my own bakery so i guess i'm looking at 5 more years? til then i'll have to eat a lot of cake. 
You shouldn't be so hard on yourself! I looked at your pics and your cakes are beautiful and unique!
Although I've been baking my whole life I also just started decorating a few months ago. I started so I could do birthday cakes for my kids and just got hooked! It's something I have always wanted to do and never thought I could. It can be frustrating because nothing I ever do looks as good as I imagine it will but if I get discouraged I just look back at the cakes I made in Wilton 1 compared to now and I feel a little better. I am SO happy that I found CC because I'm learning so much here.
I think I am pretty decent at what I do until I get here and post my pictures. That is what takes my cake self esteem down a few notches. Plus, looking at all the amazing talent here makes me think that maybe I won't ever be as fabulous as the people here. However, I think it is definitely a mind over matter thing and keeping on trying makes all the difference.
Oh my dear Edna, you surely don't have this problem, "ALL" your cakes are works of art, girl I look way up to you!!!!
Thanks...I know you think that I dont feek ike this, but the worst thing a person can do, is think they know everything..I am learning things everyday. I still sit and practice things and read and learn. There is so much out there to be learn. I love this cake ride.. It is like a roller coaster,
you have ups and down. At the end of the day, one has to be proud of what it's been done and just keep working it. Patience and desire can make you go wherever you want..the best part is, the amount of people in here that are so willing to help is amazing...
Edna
Whoa! It's good to know I'm not alone in feeling this way. The cakes on this website are absolutely amazing. Sometimes I look at a picture and am in awe that someone was so creative to come up with that design! I love decorating and know my cakes are better than your average Joe, but I also have this nasty competitive streak in me that pushes me to get better and better
I almost gave up cake decorating yesterday after what I decieded was a horrible disaster of a cake. My daughter wanted to give her friends mom a cake for taking her on vacation with them and it had been the mom's b'day while on vacation. When she came home I said sure I'll bake her a birthday cake. I had to bake 2 six inch layers with one pan, make filling, make BC, make ganache, and a chocolate transfer wrap, plus dipped strawberries with contrasting chocolate stripes all in 2 hours! I was so rushed my chocolate transfer has some holes in it. I looked at my cake and decieded that I was a failure and didn't need to pursue this hobby. My DD reminded me that I did all that in under 2 hours plus made hamburgers on the grill and I shouldn't have expected absolute perfection!! Yes, I back to dreaming up new cake designs, but next time , I think I'll give myself a little more time for the execution. LOL 
Oh my Bohnlo! You sound like me. I can't just bake the cake and decorate it. I have to do 5 million other things in the process. Even if I just did the cake, there is no way I could do everything you did in 2 hours!!!
Have any of you ever gotten really excited becuase you thought up this great new cake design and then logged onto CC and discovered someone has already done it? I did that recently and it's such a let down 
I'm still so new to decorating (baking all my life though - just not really cakes), that I have so much I want to try... And not a lot of reasons to make cakes, LOL! Right now on every cake I make there are 3 or 4 new things I'm trying.
My daisy cake for my mom's group meeting tomorrow was a new recipe (WASC), first time filling with anything other than the same frosting that was on the cake (with a good sturdy dam), first time torting, first time collaring a pan to get a deeper cake, first time with SugarShack's buttercream, and the first time I was going to go borderless on the top edge - if it turned out well enough (which I think it did, so I went with it)... There were so many places it could have gone wrong and been a complete DISASTER, but in all, I think it turned out pretty well. The key is to give myself time to work. And this morning that meant sitting at the kitchen table with my 6 month old in his boncy seat so I could sing to him, and my almost 2 year old sitting in his booster seat licking icing off of my wax paper "practice" page, LOL!
The good thing is that even though my cakes aren't perfect, I know they are a lot better than most people can do (because they've never tried, duh!), and I know that most people will be impressed, including myself!
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