Last week, I had an order for a 9X13 anniversary cake for a friend of my nephew and soon-to-be niece. She had been at their engagement party in June and loved the cake I made for them (my avatar) as well as the pics I had with me, so she placed an order for her 5th wedding annversary cake.

She sent me a picture of her DH and herself at a friend's wedding dancing, with a rock star figure photoshopped into the background. Looked really cool. The cake itself was a simple white BC with black BC writing and shells around the bottom, with a few star tips flowers in the top left and bottom right corners. (Sorry, no pics unless the cleint sends me some.)

I have a friend who has an edible ink printer (Epson, I think) and she has said that anyone can get her to print something for the cost of the medium (rice paper or fondant). Great! So, I emailed her the pic well in advance, arranged a date and time to pick it up (the evening before the cake was to be picked up). When I arrive at her place, she doesn't have it ready (lost track of time, totally understandable), so she fired up the printer. It wasn't working properly. After 45 minutes of trying, I finally told her not to worry about it, I'd print the pic out and have it laminated (and put Saran under it so it wouldn't come into contact with the cake). I get home about 2 hrs. later, and she's called. The pic printed but it was 'streaky'. (I am in no way slamming my friend. She really had no idea the printer wasn't working properly as it had been the week before - and she took an hour out of her already busy decorating schedule to do this for me. Thanks, Lynne.)

Since it's mostly black, she suggested I could colour in the black with a food writer. I decided to not do the print and laminate. Bad choice. When I went to pick it up the next day, it wasn't as good as I anticipated/hoped for. Even with colouring it in, it looked terrible. And I had no time left to even try to get a local grocery store to print it for me. I quickly used my guitar cookie cutter and prepared 6 guitars and painted them black. When my client came to get it, I had to tell her the bad news. I showed her the edible image, and the guitars. I knew she was disappointed, but was very kind in realizing it wasn't my fault. I made a few suggestions on what could be done, and she took the cake, guitars and edible image with her (she wanted to show her DH what she had planned on putting on the cake). In the end, she told me she printed a copy of the pic, wrapped it in Saran and used the guitars to hold it in place.

Of course, I took the cost of the image off her price and I offered her a $10 discount on her next order, whenever that may be. Lesson learned ... make sure the person printing the image knows the printer works a week before you need it.

aw this is such a shame, you werent to blame but yes, its hard when you have to rely on others to help you out, lessons have been learnt i am sure....i am trying to get my hands on an edible printer soon as i always have to get someone to do mine too !

x

too bad that happened. glad that it worked out in the end.

Sorry that happened... I have my own printer and was stuck once (before I realised how tempermental they can be)... I took the picture to my local grocery store and they printed one for me. Lots of them will do that for around $10.

Tubbs - good to know about grocery stores!! thanks!

The ones closest to me need a weeks' notice, or that would have definitely been my next stop.

When I get to the point where I find I'm doing edible images more and more, I just may end up getting a printer of my own - after lots of research.

I agree...I will hopefully someday get one,if I decide I "need" it...I have an hour drive each way to/from where I have them printed,plus the$10.00 per 8x11 sheet, so they cost a fair bit all considered.....

In my experience, printers (in general) never work when you really need them.

I'm glad for you OP that it worked out more or less. I hope your customer was happy with the cake and orders more!



(My worst printer story? Booked a whole vacation online, all different websites for the flights, different hotels, graound transportation etc etc etc etc. I break my ankle 2 weekd before the vacation, we decide we're still taking the vacation, but since I'm on sick leave, can't go to the office to print. So, I buy a new printer, test it, it works great. Two days before the vacation, I start printing the documents, and nothing comes out of the stupid printer! We took the whole thing back to the store, they couldn't fix it there and then, but they let me use their store printer for all my tickets.) (One can never trust technology! lol)