So I offered to bake a cake for a silent auction and offer a gift certificate as a separate item. The idea being that you could bid on a cake to take home and/or a certificate for a future cake. The only hitch here comes from the fact that I'm a pretty small time home baker and have never made a GC before. Who knew I'd have so much trouble?! Well, I devised something that will work in the meantime, but what the heck do all you fab professionals out there do? Order them? Is there decent software available to design your own on a Mac? I wanted to include some pics of my fave cakes on the certificate to give people an idea on what they were bidding for. Also, for an event such as this what would you usually make the certificate out for? A dollar amount? Serving amount? Thanks for your input!

I can't help you with how to make it. But on it I would include a cake size, serving and the value of the cake.

So say you are offering a 6in and an 8in tiered cake then I would do something like...

Good for a 6in and 8in tiered cake that serves 36. Retail Value $108.
Offer is good from ACB-XYZ. Please place order 2-4 weeks in advance.

When I do gift certificates I design them on my Microsoft Publisher program. I add the same details as TexasSugar mentioned, plus I always put an expiration date on the certificate...no farther out than 1 year after the auction date. You don't want a call 5 years from now for a cake valued at $50 that you now charge $100 for. Good luck.

We make GCs in Microsoft Word: just draw a box, throw in some clip art and/or your logo, add some text, and print on some nice card stock. PowerPoint would also work.

Our GCs are usually worded more like coupons, for example $50 off your next order.

Most importantly, don't forget to include your phone number (I can't stand it when you see a well-designed ad, but they forgot to add the most important part!), and it wouldn't hurt to add your logo and web address as well.

I'm a designer (just interested a lot in cakes, lol) and I have always worked on Macs.

I have all the "biggies" when it comes to design programs. But, I know that there are small programs out there. My advice is that you go to the Apple store and go through the small programs. I like doing that because you know that at that store they wouldn't have anything that doesn't work on Macs. I've heard of this one:

http://www.belightsoft.com/products/swiftpublisher/version2.php

There are also designers on Etsy that are selling printable PDFs. You pay once, they send you a PDF that you can print as many times as you want (and they'll be nicely designed).

http://rkdsign88.blogspot.com/2008/12/printable-pdf-gift-tags-or-note-cards.html

Just an idea.

zazzle.com. They are great with artwork. Just plug in your info and it is cheap.

scp1127 just reminded me of these places... there's a place where I had my sister's business cards printed. Moo Cards.

I had a different cake image per card, all of her cakes and candies, and the same back with her phone number, address, etc.

All you do is round up your JPGs and start uploading them.

It's also a good way to print all your cakes into a cute package that you can show around, like playing cards.

http://us.moo.com/products/business-cards.html

Video of how it works here:

http://us.moo.com/about/printfinity.html

imagenthatnj, I just checked out moo.com... great idea. I have used zazzle for my logo, business cards, company shirts, etc. They will even customize for you. And everything is shipped the next day. Customer service is in the USA and they get back to you immediately.

Thanks for all the great ideas so far everyone. The websites look fantastic. Especially as graphic design is not my first strength! And Texas, thanks for the ideas on making the certificate info specific. That definitely helps to eliminate nasty surprises!

I would say yes, for fast shipping, customer service and lower prices, zazzle is a great deal.

There's a "moo cult" out there (those mini moo and their containers are all over!) People make puzzles out of one photo, they sell jewelry attached to them, all kinds of things. I think there's even a group in flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/moome/pool/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/moo/pool/

How crazy is that? Great ideas here, though, even if you have them printed somewhere else.

I did mine throught www.vistaprint.com. I just had to pay the shipping. I have my logo on it as well as a border at the bottom with some of my favorite cakes.

imagenthatnj, thanks for the info. My website will have tons of pictures on it (eventually) and I can see where this would be an attention-getter... and that's what it takes in today's market. Thanks for the great idea!