Where's My Inspiration?

We all know, or at least we should know, that custom cakes are a form of art. Cake artists take a lot of time thinking of a design, working with the customer, baking and making the parts of the cake, putting it together, and making sure the whole cake flows not only with itself, but with the event/venue. This all takes a keen imagination and eye. Many people want cakes based on other cakes, but where do those original artists get their ideas?

Truth is, there's inspiration literally everywhere: the outdoors, random items people buy or own, other works of art, etc.

Personally, before I started making cake, I was just another artist. I would draw mainly with pencil, or paint with acrylic. When I want decor for my home, I try to do it myself rather than buying everything. So I painted this painting for a room in my house: 

Mostly because I wasn't going to pay $40 for a nautical print on canvas.

 One of my cake colleagues saw this painting and immediately saw a cake She persuaded me to make a cake based on my painting, and since I had some extra cake stuff, I decided to go ahead with it.

The top is supposed to be the sky (I still need to work on my blending when it comes to buttercream), with a gumpaste sailboat riding the buttercream waves of the second tier.

Before the painting inspiration, I was inspired by something I found on Pinterest.

It's not my style, but I found it very pretty and something in my head just clicked.

I had been wanting to try a new technique in this tutorial by Kara's Couture Cakes, and I really wanted to do it in gold. It just so happened that I came across this skirt after I read the tutorial. Anyway, I bought the tools and ingredients, made the sequins, and went about placing those tiny little sequins one by one on the cake. It was totally worth it in the end.

A close-up of the sequins and the top border.

See? Inspiration comes in many forms, and can be found anywhere!

You can find more of my work on my Facebook page. If you would like to see higher quality pictures, check out my Flickr photostream.