I wish I had some. Does a sense of color and form and design come with time and practice? I find myself picking up the skills very easily, but I have to copy people off here to have a decent looking cake. I usually combine several ideas and alter it a bit. I feel like I'm plagiarizing and I'll get called to the principal's office when I post pictures.

Dave

I know of a few people (myself included) who look at photos of other peoples cakes to get ideas for thier own. im still new but im hoping that as i learn and get better i will be able to come up with more and more ideas of my own. as long as your not copying every tiny detail of someone elses design and that you add your own "stamp" to it you will be fine!
HTH
katie

If you get an artists color wheel it can help you in choosing colors that work well together

If you go thru the pics on here, I doubt you'll be able to come up with a long list of cakes that can be categorized as "never saw that cake before ANYWHERE!"

I can't reinvent putting dots, scrolls, or ribbons on a cake. Can't figure out how to make "blue" an original idea. Totally stuck on how to make a poker table look like no other poker table in the world.

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

This is the reason that I don't post more of my cake pictures. I, too, can pick up the skills and techniques fairly quickly, but I don't really have too much in the "creativity" department. I look at other cakes and think "I never thought of using those colors", or "wow, that is a neat way to do that. Most of my cakes are a lot like other cakes I've seen on here (at least my best attempt at it).
There is just so much talent on here, and it is fun to see different takes on some of the same ideas. Like when I was looking for a "Ben 10" cake, and saw how many different ways that cake was done.
I wish I was a little more creative, but I am learning more and more each day from all the others that are.

Wow, how true that is. I can always find something wrong with my cakes and sometimes, I am just not happy with how it turned out, because what I had in my head did not end up on the cake the same. My daughter is always telling me that I don't give myself enough credit. Yet, sometimes, I just feel that I can do better than what I did. And almost always, when I am all done with a cake, all of a sudden a better way or cuter way of executing my idea will pop into my head. That just drives me nuts.

Exactly.

Hey...that's what sites like this are for...for sharing, and for inspiration! If you get inspiration from a particular cake, then just credit the person who made it...most people find it flattering so long as credit it given!!

I feel the exact same way! I always feel like I am copying someone else to get my design. I have never felt very artistic though because the extent of my artisticness was limited drawing stick figures and coloring in coloring books. So being creative is a semi-new concept to me. I am trying to do more of my own design though. Like I'm doing two bithday cakes in two weeks and I am basing the design solely on the napkins being used. They are going to be topsy turvy with stripes and dots. That doesn't sound very different, but like indydebi said, you can't reinvent stripes and dots. I say don't worry about it. As you get better you will learn now techniques and be able to combine different things to make "different" cakes.