I didn't start to seriously indulge my urge to be creative with cakes until 2007 when I decided to take a Wilton cake decorating class at JoAnne Fabrics in Springfield. My creative spirit comes from my mom. Growing up she and both of my grandmother's were always trying to come up with the next latest and greatest craft to sell at the Christmas bazaars. My mom has an entire room of what I consider to be her "raw materials" to her latest and greatest creation. She is a great recycler...She can make most anything into a craft... I played around with crafting growing up. I painted using the "One Stroke" technique and made glass vases, flower pots, magazine racks etc... I didn't like having all of these leftover supplies and creations hanging around my apartments. I didn't have much space and certainly didn't have a dedicated room for my supplies. I decided I need another approach. I tried scrap booking but just couldn't seem to get myself organized enough to stick with it. Then I realized that Cake would be the greatest craft. I could have an outlet for my creativity yet, the end product wouldn't stick around and collect dust and take up space... It would be eaten and then I would get to make it all over again... Perfect! My main goal when I started was to make my three nieces a special birthday cake, a cake of their choosing (when they were old enough to decide). It has since grown to making cakes for my siblings, parents, family and friends. I don't sell cakes, I'm not interested in starting a business. It is a lot of work to make these cakes and right now it is a labor of love... I don't want that love to go away...
Here is where I believe the love started... Mom had the 1977 Wilton catalog and it lived under the end table closest to the T.V. My "spot" in the living room, when we would all would watch T.V. as a family at night, would be to curl up on the floor next to this T.V. stand. I would page through this catalog endlessly.
