WARNING! This post is picture overkill. All of the pictures were just so cute that I couldn’t narrow it down any more than this.

My little girl just turned 5 and we just happened to be having a small family reunion that day. So my wonderful mom, and my awesome sisters (including sisters-in-law) helped me put together the cutest 5 year old birthday party I’ve ever seen. So, I thought I would share some of the cute things we did.

The theme for the party was FAIRIES! What’s more fun for little girls than putting on a cute pair of fairy wings, a flower headpiece and a fluffy pink tutu? I would have to say that about tops the charts on the list of all time favorite things for little girls. So, I did some research on how to make some homemade wings, and my seamstress of a sister (who makes amazing cloth diapers) made the tutus.

If you know my family, birthdays are not a big deal.  I honestly only remember getting about 3 birthday presents throughout my entire childhood. So the fairy world was quite the production for us. We had a fairy world set up in the backyard. A nice wooden arbor was the entrance and we had some stakes placed in a large circle which we connected with simple pink crape paper. Inside the circle was a fairy bower made out of pink tulle and a hula hoop suspended from a tree with a table and benches for the fairies to make their crafts and have a tea party. Then everything was adorned with pink Pink PINK . Flowers, butterflies, bows, anything pink and glittery was in this fairy world.

So, here’s how the party went. The Fairy Queen (my brother’s girlfriend) brought all of the girls to the entrance of the fairy world. They waited (somewhat) patiently to have their faces painted and have their fairy accessories put on.

Then the fun began. They all sat around the table inside the bower and made toadstools out of easter eggs and aluminum foil.

They really did turn out cute. Then they made little fairies out of clothespins, tulle ribbon and flowers.

After the crafts, they all went over to hear a fairy story told by the Queen Fairy. Then it was back to the bower which had been magically transformed into a tea party.

They decorated their own little fairy gardens on cupcakes which I had prepared. There were toadstools, stones, and flowers, with a sprinkling of fairy dust (sugar sprinkles).

Then they had flower shaped sandwiches and fairy wands (fruit kabobs) with a cup of nectar (pink lemonade). When they were finished they were sent on a fairy treasure hunt to find sparkly buttons and beads which were then made into bracelets.

My little girl was just giddy to have such a fun party and all of the girls had so many fun treasures to take home. I’ve never seen a cuter sight than 10 of my cute little nieces fluttering around in their fairy world. It was truly magical. Thanks to everyone who helped me prepare for the festivities, and thanks to my sister-in-law Britta for the amazing pictures!

Oh I forgot the boxes! My mom and sisters covered shoe boxes for the girls to hold all of their fun new treasures.

Tomorrow I’ll have pictures and instructions on how I made these cute fairy wings.

I have had several requests from people that would like to learn a couple of techniques that they have seen on my cakes. I thought about posting some tutorials but then I thought I could one-up that. I am in the works of recording some videos that I’ll be posting on YouTube. It will be a few weeks before they will be ready to go, but I was so excited about the idea that I had to share. I have plans to share my quilting technique that was done on my Ultimate Cake Off cake for the first video. If you have any special requests, now is the time. Let me know what you would like to see, and it might be a future video.

A: Thinking about the post I wrote yesterday, I wanted to add a few thoughts. I have people ask me all the time how I do it all. The answer is…. I don’t! Nobody can.

Unfortunately, there is a limited number of hours in a day, and the older I get the more I realize how fast time flies. It is easy to feel like there is too much to do. It’s easy to look at your life and see all of the hundreds of things that you could be doing but are not, and think that you’re not accomplishing anything. It can be very overwhelming. I’ve felt that way so many times and still do. I used to think that I was just plain lazy.

Now I know better. I think that being overwhelmed is misdiagnosed for laziness all too often.  If we just know what we want and then list how that needs to happen and have a focus, we are a lot more likely to get up and do the things that need to be done in order to get us there.

So, here’s what I do. I make goals. But not in the traditional way. I don’t think about all of the things that I need to do better. That method is too negative and then I don’t feel like doing anything to reach those “guilt goals”.  I think about the things that I want. I make a list of the 5 things that I want most. This way, the goals are something that I am happy to work toward.

Then when it comes time to make my list of things to do, I line them up with my goals. If they don’t do anything to help achieve those goals, they are pushed to a lower priority. The things that need to be done that match up with those goals are put on the top of my list. This is how I “do it all”. . . I don’t. I do the things that are the most important and if I have time, I’ll do the lower priority things.

It’s impossible to do everything. You just have to figure out what is important to you and do the things that will help you get there. Don’t waste your time trying to do everything that comes along. Life is short. Make everything you do worthwhile. My wise grandpa had this verse written on a card in his scriptures and now I have it hanging on my wall.

“Let all things be done decently and in order.” 1 Corinthians 14:40

This week I am working on cleaning and organizing my work area. Not the most glamorous part of the job, but it’s necessary and it gives me time to think. As I have been working, I have been noticing the size of my space. It looks to me like my kitchen is shrinking. I’m sure all of this stuff fit in here before but it’s just a little crammed. I can definitely see the need for a larger work area. For some reason, it has gotten me thinking back to my high school days.

When I was in high school, I was in band. Yes, I was the epitome of a band nerd and I wear that label with pride. I love the arts and I hope that they stay strong for the future generations. Getting back to my point. I played one of those cheap student model clarinets for all of my music career. A clarinet that definitely has it’s limits. I had always dreamed of a nice Buffet Crampon R13 Professional model clarinet with the finest grenadilla wood and beautiful nickel keys. But I didn’t sit around and wait for it. I kept playing my cheap Yamaha. I practiced hard to overcompensate for the limitations of my clarinet. My band teacher even told me that he was amazed at the sound that I was able to create from such an instrument and he could only imagine what I could do with a professional clarinet.

I think back on that, and at the time, I thought it was such a handicap to not have the best instrument. But now I can see that it was ok and maybe even an advantage. I had to work hard for what I accomplished. It wasn’t just handed to me in the form of a beautiful clarinet. I think that that little student model Yamaha may just have been more valuable to my success in life than any professional clarinet ever could have been.

So, I’ll keep dreaming of the day when I can have my extra large kitchen with my five Hobart mixers, and my professional ovens, and walk-in feezer. . . . and my flower room, and photo studio, and consultation room. But in the mean time, I’ll be here, working extra hard to make the most amazing wedding cakes and event cakes that Utah (and the world) has ever seen.  And a friendly word of advice to my fellow budding cake artists. It may be a long hard road, but don’t give up. Limitations are artificial and self-inflicting. Work extra hard and you’ll be better for it.

Utah is a unique state when it comes to weddings, so I decided to write a little about Utah weddings and how they affect Utah wedding cakes. Wedding receptions in Utah can be a bit different than in other places. The biggest reason for this seems to be due to the fact that a lot of Utah families are larger than average, and quite frankly, parents of the bride and groom want to invite a lot of friends and extended family to the reception. That being the case, a sit down dinner reception can become quite expensive. So, instead of having a formal four course dinner, many couples opt for a more informal open house type of reception where many people can come and congratulate the bride and groom on their special day.

So, how does this affect a wedding cake? Traditionally, the ceremonial wedding cake cutting takes place after the dinner. With an open house setting, there are usually hors d’oeuvres and light deserts with guests coming and going. The concern is being able to serve cake to guests that come at the beginning of the evening as well as having a nice looking cake for guests that are coming later in the evening.

One way to handle the wedding cake cutting is to include a time of ceremonial events in the invitations. That way, the guests that care to watch and be a part of the cake cutting, can plan to come at that specific time. Another solution is to have a display wedding cake made that has only one tier of actual cake that is real and serve cake slices from a sheet cake. This way you can have your cake and eat it too. Be aware though that this method is not necessarily a less costly way to go. The decorator is not only making one wedding cake, but multiple side cakes as well. The cost will usually be about the same. But the cake can be cut at the time that works best for the couple and the guests can all have a delicious slice of cake whether they are the first to arrive or the last.

Regardless of the type of reception that is chosen, a beautiful wedding cake is always the centerpiece of the reception… aside from the bride anyway.

It has been a really long time since I have posted any pictures or blogs. In my defense, I have had a whole lot going on! However, when I am busiest is the best time to be blogging. So, I will try to catch up a bit. I’ll start with today though. This post won’t be so much a cake decorating post as a personal post but it relates to cakes a little bit. It worked so well, I just had to share.

My kids are young and in the process of learning to do chores. I have struggled with the process for a while because it is easier if I just do it all myself. However, there are two problems with that. First, the kids never learn to work and second, they don’t think about the messes they make because mom will clean it up. Well, this morning I had a brilliant idea!

Since my kids are totally into Ultimate Cake Off BECAUSE I WAS A COMPETITOR THIS SEASON (more on that later), I decided to make a timeline for them. Just like the one I used for the competition. I showed them the timeline (and highlighted where all of the breaks were) and told them that they needed to keep on the timeline in order to win the competition. Then I started the clock. It was amazing the amount of work they got done today…and I didn’t have to nag at them the whole time either. It was wonderful. If you’re interested in knowing how I made my chart, read on.

So, here’s how I did it. I made a chart that went in 15 minute increments. Each kid had their own chart as well as a master chart for me. I made the chores change every 15 minutes because I have young kids and they have VERY short attention spans. I also added in 15 minute breaks after every two chores. If they finished a chore before the 15 minutes were up, they got to take a break for the rest of that time.

I was actually able to get THREE HOURS worth of work out of my kids. Not to mention that they loved doing it. That is absolutely unheard of in this house. It was a lot of work for me keeping them all on task, but it wasn’t any more work than “just doing it myself”. As a reward, I gave them a movie (Pete’s Dragon). One of my favorites as a child. I don’t know if there are very many young mothers that have little Ultimate Cake Off fans. I just thought I would share, just in case.

It has been a while since I posted and I feel bad for not taking advantage of this wonderful site that I have. So, I decided that I will use it a little better and post on a regular basis.

I was wondering what I should write about and what kind of information would be useful to others and then I thought about the people that have asked me lately for advice in getting a cake decorating business started. So, here are some ideas that I found have been useful to me in getting started.

Just a little disclaimer; some of my information is based on being a resident of Utah. If you live in other states, you’ll have to check for the laws and procedures for your state.

It’s not the easiest thing to get started. I feel like I’m still trying to get things in place. That being said, it definitely can be done. I have been working at getting things started for a lot of years now. I played around with the idea when I first got married. It was just a hobby and fascination at the time. I didn’t know a whole lot. So, I read and practiced for a few years and wanted more. So, I took the Wilton classes at my local craft store.

After taking the classes, I decided it would be fun to teach them. That was a really good thing for me because cake decorating was always at the front of my mind and I had a good reason to practice often. All of this took several years. I had 3 kids at the time that I started teaching classes.

Actually starting a business was an idea for the future. I was going to wait until all of my kids were in school so I could devote the time to the business that is required. However, I was constantly being asked to make cakes, and then my husband decided to go back to school. So, the idea of another income suddenly became almost necessary.

If you’re really serious about starting a business, you need to get in touch with the Cottage Foods Program. They are a part of the Agricultural Department. In the state of Utah we’re lucky to be able to have this program. Most states don’t allow home based food businesses. You’ll need a food handlers permit and all of the recipes that you will offer to customers and submit them to the Cottage Foods. Then as soon as everything is approved, you can go ahead and get your business license.

While you’re going through all of that, it’s a good idea to figure out your pricing and I really can’t help out much in that department. It is a pretty difficult thing to decide how much you’re worth but I feel it’s a personal thing. When I started, I found that I would quote a price for a cake to find later that the cost to make it was as much or more than I charged, leaving little or no profit. It comes with experience and knowing how much your ingredients and time cost. It also takes knowing how long it will take you to make the cake (especially all of the details that always take longer than you expect).

Then there’s getting your name out there. The more experience you have, the more customers just find you. Bridal shows are beneficial. Cake competitions are really good too. If you can win an award and be able to put that in your resume, it helps a lot. The fact that I won a national award has really helped me.

Classes are a good thing to do too. It’s a pretty big expense once you get into the more advanced classes but they are totally worth it. There are local classes that you can take. I teach some. There are a lot of experienced cake decorators that teach classes here in Utah. Then there are classes out of state. They’re all over. It’s just a matter of how much you’re willing to invest into it.

ICES (International Cake Exploration Society) is a good thing to do too. There is a Utah Chapter that you can join. They have meetings pretty often and every year there is a national convention. There are so many fun and talented cake decorators here in Utah and it’s really nice getting to know them.

The last thing I can think of is to build a portfolio. It takes time and a good photographer but it’s necessary to have good quality pictures of beautiful cakes in order for people to want your business. I have two photographers (Tricia Hancock and Britta Dastrup) that take all of my cake pictures. They are wonderful and very talented. It has made a huge difference in my portfolio and to my business to have professional pictures.

I hope this has helped you a little bit and if you have anymore questions, feel free to ask. It’s always nice to have a cake friend.

Good luck in your endeavors.