Liesey K Cakes

This past year I decided to take my cakes "public" and created a Facebook page.  At first it was super stressful and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to or want to keep up!

It has been a full year and I've done over 120 orders.  I am gaining skill and speed the more I do.  I'm super thankful that it is becoming less stress and more of a retreat.  I've always been someone who has a one track mind and when there's a lot on my mind it is a blessing to have a cake to zone out to. 

This has been a learning process and I do very little the same as I did when I started.  I have watched countless you tube videos, and scoured cake forums, and chatted with other bakers. 

Here's a couple things I've learned:

1.  Custom cakes cost more because they take hours...and hours...  And if you want something tiered or covered in fondant I have to be fair to myself and to my family and make it worth my time.  No one wants to work for $2 an hour.

2.  You can't rush fondant.  You have to have time to make it, let it rest, and apply it.  You just can't do it last minute.

3.  Sugar cookies are difficult and not my favorite thing to do.  Flood cookies are the hardest sugar cookie and most time consuming.  There are people out there that are cookie artists...I am not one.  If I make sugar cookies I strongly prefer butter cream icing with special little treats like butter pecans and chocolate. 

4.  I have a niche.  It's butter cream art.  I love to "draw" with different colors of icing layering bit by bit and watch a picture come alive.

5.  There's so much to learn and there is a limit to how many cakes/orders I can do in a week.  I could schedule 11 (like I did Labor Day weekend) and be miserable, or I could schedule 3-5 every 7-10 days and be very productive and perfectly content. 

6.  I love love love having my cakes in my nieces and nephews birthday pictures.  I have been blessed with several orders from family and I just love that in those pictures from now until forever Aunt Shannon made them that cake.  All of our family has insisted on compensating me for my time and that support means the world to me.  Love Love Love.

7.  Marshmallow fondant is easy, quick, and cheap to make but homemade/from scratch fondant is so much easier to work with and tastes like heaven.  Being able to roll it out and cover a cake with ease is worth the extra cost and effort. 

8.  Keeping up a Facebook Business page is a part time job in and of itself.  Staging and taking pictures of my cakes once they're finally done is as important as decorating them in the first place.  I am not a photographer, but fortunately my neighbor is :)  She's had a lot of great tips and helps. 

9. Running to Wal-Mart for boxes and boards and color and such is super convenient but ordering from Amazon is SOO much more cost effective.

10.  Um...Not being able to eat my creations is the only thing keeping me under 200lbs...  Sorry, couldn't think of a 10th and it felt weird not rounding it out :)

Overall it's been a great year and I have learned SO much.  I want to thank everyone who has supported my family by ordering from me.  It has been such a blessing.   EAT CAKE!!!