Contestant's Case to Win

Sugar Flower Shop creates beautiful realistic-looking flowers handmade from sugar, shipped anywhere in the world, allowing a bride and other home bakers to transform their basic cakes into unique works of art.

A wedding cake, symbolic of the bride and groom’s love, is the most photographed object of the day, yet in the current economic environment brides are looking for ways to economize without sacrificing the overall look. To save money, many brides turn to a close friend or family member who can bake a wedding cake, but these home bakers usually lack the necessary decorating skills. Clever brides turn to Sugar Flower Shop for flowers individually handmade from sugar that can be added at the last minute to create truly stunning cakes. As an additional benefit, these floral designs can stand the test of time. Even though Sugar Flower Shop flowers are made from sugar, they can be preserved as keepsakes after the event and will last forever.

I work with brides and other home bakers to discover exactly what they are looking for, providing sketches to help in the design selection as well as detailed instructions for placing each flower on the cake. Using my artistic expertise, I create customized sugar flowers that look like they came fresh from the garden. My delicate flowers are shipped around the world, using my own well tested packaging method, recently as far as Dubai from New York City.

I began creating sugar flowers after easily mastering a few different flowers taught through a handful of amateur classes - I did not attend culinary school. Some flowers came so effortlessly that I began investing my free time, absorbing information from books on gumpaste techniques and looking to nature through pictures and dissecting real flowers. This allowed me to train my eye to produce more realistic flowers. After being persuaded by friends and family to begin selling my incredibly realistic creations, I created Sugar Flower Shop in 2006.

Just a few years later, Sugar Flower Shop has received numerous accolades from all over the country. My work is currently appearing on the STYLE Network as a part of a recurring special entitled, “Martha Stewart Weddings: The Art of Cakes II” and is featured in the Spring 2009 edition of Martha Stewart Weddings Magazine and in the June edition of CLEVER! Magazine. I have also appeared as a guest chef at the 2009 Macy's Flower Show in Herald Square and will be involved in an event at Bloomingdale's with La Prairie cosmetics this July. In addition to pleasing brides and bakers, I also work with local artists, occasionally contributing sugar sculptures for use in art projects.

I just love working with a bride who wants the deep personal connection that comes from making her own wedding cake. It is exhilarating to receive feedback after the event when she has had so much fun with friends and family whimsically arranging the sugar flowers I have created for her!

Winning this competition would be a huge personal boost for me to know that all of the hard work I have put into my one-woman home-based business can be further built upon so that I can continue to artistically inspire home bakers around the world to create their own cake masterpieces.