I have been looking at the gallery and there are so many beautiful, creative cakes.  I am not creative, I can look at a picture and think ok, I can make that, but without looking at pictures I'm stuck.  I really don't want to copy other peoples designs, how do you guys come up with your own original designs?  Where do you draw your inspiration from? 

Inspiration can come from anywhere. I have been inspired by greeting cards, a party invitation or napkin, wall art, coloring books, an evening gown, a vase of flowers, my garden, etc. I found it helpful to take a floral arrangement class in addition to cake decorating classes. I look at how colors are used together whether it's on a business sign, clothing, a bed spread or wherever and use those as my color pallet for my cakes.

Creativity comes easier to some than others, but the hustle and bustle of life and the cake business can really interfere with creativity. I was more creative when I first started partly because I wasn't in rush to quote out so many inquiries in a day and partly because I hadn't seen so many cakes. And also partly because I hadn't developed a habit of a way of doing things.

I have to find a way to relax and used to do some of my best work with a sketch pad while soaking in the tub.

That said, almost everybody copies everybody's cakes and in my opinion there is nothing at all wrong with that. Hardly anyone can come up with 3-5 completely original works every week.

Hi Nicki, great question to post!

When I started out I was just thrilled if I was able to re-create someone else's design from a cake decorating book, but as you get more experienced, you get an even bigger kick out of cake decorating if you come up with your own original designs.

For me I started with bridal magazines - I would look at the flow of the fabric, the draping, the accents, the structure of wedding dresses and bridal  bouquets to inspire me. I should probably expand my source of inspiration a bit more to eg. jewellery, architecture, fine art, gardens, but never seem to have time to sit down and read anymore! It's a good idea to keep a scrapbook of clippings from magazines to browse through for inspiration when you need to come up with a new design.

I work mostly on wedding cakes, but I also keep a folder for novelty cake design ideas with separate sections for side designs, toppers, lettering, colour schemes, etc so that I can mix and match those for new designs.  Children's toys and books, if I had time to look at them would yield lots of inspiration, I'd imagine.  Good luck, Nicki!

I start with someone else's design, and then I take the elements I like and put it into my own design!  Buttercream is so forgiving, so you can attach things and re-attach things (like gum paste flowers) until you like what you see.

I also look at colors I like together everywhere, but particularly from nature.  A purple butterfly on a blue hydrangea, a red tomato, the yellow sun and it's many shades...all kinds of things make for color combos!

Hot pink and orange are my current favs...