It's our birthday!

We are one today!  Today is the day I officially launched Curiositea, with my initial Etsy page and a few lengths of bunting to my name!

I can't believe a year has gone by already and we're still going strong!  I've met some amazing people along the way and learnt an enormous amount.

Thinking back to how this all began; it started with a birthday cake.  My eldest son was turning 4 and four weeks earlier we'd had the unexpected premature birth of my youngest son.  Not due until the day before my eldest's 4th birthday, we suddenly had another guest at the party!  My eldest loves Wallace & Gromit, and his new little brother had got him a Gromit cuddly toy as a present for his big brother.  The choice of birthday cake was straight forward; Gromit.

I armed myself with a copy of Debbie Brown's Wallace & Gromit Cake Decoration book and the appropriate icing and was away.  To be honest, I'd never attempted anything more challenging that plastic figures on top of a fairly basic traybake before, so I was a little nervous at tackling something so specific, and well known!  I comforted myself with the excuse that I had recently had a baby, so to even turn up on the correct day would have been an achievement; with or without cake!

I was very proud of the finished result, and the thrill of presenting it to my son at his party was worth the late night and stress.  That was where the idea was put into my head that I could do this for other people.  Some friends asked about a Mermaid cake for their daughter, from that I received my first commission for an RAF inspired 80th birthday cake and I was away.

The thrill is always the same.  The challenge of the idea, the planning, the execution, the moment when the client sees it for the first time; all of those moments are unbeatable.  I sometimes have the privilege to be there when the recipient sees the cake for the first time, though to be honest, I do always look away when it's cut.

I love what I do.  I love that it has formed my life over the last year.  I love the ambition it has instilled within me and I hope I can carry on for another year.  Or two... or three?