New Web Site for Sharon's Cake Art

[joshalow]

I haven't posted in a while- have been busy with family , and designing a new website. After years of not having my own domain, I figured it was time to get one and update my website. I finished it this week and published it a few days ago. To visit it's at:

Sharon's Cake Art There's a wedding cake gallery, birthday and special occasion cakes, cookies, and a gallery on some of my gumpaste figurines, flowers, blown sugar bubbles and pastillage castles. TIA

[In2Pastry]

WOW!! Very nice website. Your cakes and sugar art are outstanding!

[Wendy DeBord]

Wow, truely fabulous Sharon! Really impressive work!

I wish your photos were slightly larger though...........I'm struggling to see the fine details..........I don't want to miss a thing but theres parts I can't make out that I wish I could.

[Tepee]

Hey, Sharon! Congrats on your new site...I know it's not easy doing a new website. Just to let you know that when I click on some thumbnails, the enlarged version is a bit distorted.

Pls give your parents my warmest regards........

[joshalow]

Thanks everyone. Thanks for visiting my site and for the input as to the larger pictures. I'm not the best at designing webpages- first one, and probably the last (I won't consider yet a 3rd career move here ) but I appreciate your input. I had noticed some of the pictures aren't as clear as they could be, considering they are digital- I think I got the size wrong for the space they are opening up into, so I'll be going back, slowly, and fixing up the problem. Hopefully then I can have them open up into a larger picture.

[BROWNSUGA]

Wow! I love your new site!! I visited your old website in the past and didnt think that your website did your talent any justice!!! Now, everything goes together perfectly! Everything is beautiful!! Great job. What a diifference a good website can make!

[phedre]

Holy (@*#

That is incredible! I don't think i've ever seen anything quite like that in my life! Very nice!

[Deborah]

Thanks for letting us know that your website has changed--I've got the new one bookmarked. Beautiful cakes! You really are very talented!

[mignardise]

Sharon- Very nice work!!!!! Beautiful cakes. Thanks for sharing.

[achevres]

Sharon, your work is beautiful! Thanks for posting your website. I also wish the pictures were larger.

One thing I can't find on your website is...where are you located? The only clue would be your area code, but I can't find where 905 is in my phone book.

[DiH]

Nicely designed website... a great combination of thought, creativity and hard, time consuming work.

I'm having a problem tho' with the thumbnail photos. When I "click to enlarge" any of the photos, I get either: 1) nothing at all, or 2) an enlargement of the tiered cake as shown in your logo.

Ah, the neverending trials and tribulations of a new website. Keep up the good work!

Di

[CurlySue]

Hey Sharon! Great job on the new site!! I know what a pain it is to do a new website because I just got done revamping mine for about the 50th time. I'm using the same code as you (from Jacque) for the gallery so if I can be of any help whatsoever please don't hesitate to ask. I think you know how to reach me, otherwise you can PM me here. I was sorry to hear about the "picture thief" and am glad you finally got that resolved. Amazing.

I'm so glad your site is up though, you're one of my favorite decorators!!

[K8memphis]

I never knew that was you!! Your castle cakes--well, all your work is outstanding, stunning--but your castle cakes are my favorites--I could not love those floral tower toppers more--the inverted flowers you use for on top of the towers. Fabulous!! The website is very cool. Multiple congratulations!!!!

[joshalow]

Thank you everyone for visiting my website and for your kind words!. You're all so kind! The thing with my website now is to take the time and get larger pictures in it. (Maybe I should also do something so that nobody can "steal" another 22 pictures like what just happened with my old site ). Also have to figure out why some visitors to the site can't open up the thumbnails- unfortunately I don't know enough about it.) I've tried asking some on FP message boards, but can't seem to get a reason for it happening other than some may not have java turned on. Anyways, Thanks again everyone.

Achevres, I am in Ontario, Canada.

[Wendy DeBord]

I do love to print out other peoples work, I value those photos as I do published books I've purchased. I only print out the best examples and I try to learn from them. Just as I would from a published book. I think that's fairly common, and personally I see nothing wrong with doing so.

I do understand what you refered to with someone taking your photos and putting their name on them. Thats totally wrong!

It's a shame that many top decorators have to resort to preventing others from being able to click on their photos and print out their work. Certainly I do respect those decorators decisions..........personally I feel it's a shame.

I try to live thinking most people are good and refuse to let a few bad apples ruin how I feel toward people as a whole...........and I'm hoping that you might feel that way too.

I do wonder how many buyers shop cake decorators on the net. I'd sort of bet that the majority of visitors are other decorators. I believe most people buy from references and word of mouth about a local decorator. I think that putting up a website is partically putting your work out there to share/compete/get acknowledged and that's good because we all benefit from that. I think the skill level of cake decorators has grown enormously since the advent of the internet. Prior to it, we all counted on books and the snails pace of their releases kept most of us growing at a snails pace too.

I really hope you will continue to share with those of us who want to learn from you.

[CurlySue]

I do wonder how many buyers shop cake decorators on the net. I'd sort of bet that the majority of visitors are other decorators. I believe most people buy from references and word of mouth about a local decorator.

←

I just wanted to comment on this. When I started my business I had *nothing* but my internet site. I did some dummy cakes and put the pictures out there and hoped for the best. My first year I did about 30 wedding cakes and countless party cakes, all based on my website. Of course word of mouth has helped now and I get a lot of referral business that way, but I did in fact (and still do) get many, many orders from visitors to my website. It really works! I've had several clients tell me they wanted to shop bakers but most didn't have websites so they didn't even bother with anyone without a website. Brides especially are very internet savvy and some will buy based solely on the quality of your website... I've had clients tell me exactly that. It's an amazing advertising medium. It's also great for other decorators too.

[BROWNSUGA]

Curlysue, I agree. In today's world, it is so much easier to "shop" with a click of the mouse. I would think that most of the visitor's to one's site are customers who are either looking for ideas for a cake or shopping for a decorator. Although word-of-mouth is great, a website can actually let you visualize the skill level of a decorator. And if there local, all the better. Plus, I know of a few decorators who have been asked to travel to a location. These designers were propositioned because of the potential customer visited their websites.

I admit that I am the same way even when it comes to other services. Even if I am looking for local services, I search on the internet first. I will usually research the companies with a website first. Also, the quality of the website means alot, too.

As far as stealing pictures, I never thought people did such a thing. However, being on various boards and seeing other decorators sites, I realized that it happened more than I could know. There were people who stole others pictures and tried to pass it off as their own work. I also remember visiting Lindy Smith's site and it had mentioned that someone also stole pictures from her and placed them on their website. It's a shame that people even resort to such a thing.

Edited May 4, 2005 by BROWNSUGA (log)

[joshalow]

Thanks Wendy - I do agree with you as well. I don't have any problems with other decorators or brides who want to print off pictures or save them to their files, and use the cakes as a resource. I enjoy looking at tha amazing work that is out there on websites, etc. This case was a "wedding coordintaor" who had a "Cake store" on her website, and had posted 22 of my pictures in her cake store, without waiting for my consent, and without even giving any indication as to who had made these cakes. She used other cakes from other people as well, without their permission either. Although she promised and promised, she didn't remove the pictures. If she had given a link, and given credit to the decorators, making it more of a resource for her potential clients, I wouldn't have had an issue with it. I had placed a watermark on some of my pictures before, and even that didn't stop her from using one of the pictures on a website that offers a cake gallery for decorators, under her name (although it had my name across the bottom of the picture ). I like to expect the best from others as well, unfortunately, it seems there are some people out there who don't live by the same rules.

I agree with Curly Sue and BrownSugar as to the influence of the website for business. I get the majority of my clients through the internet, many of them are from out of town, etc. A lot of the brides do their shopping at lunch time, late at night, or while at work. It is really an amazing advertising medium- and it much cheaper than having to place ads, etc.

[chefpeon]

Yep, I third that.......when I worked at the cake shop in Redmond, at least 50% of our sales and leads were from the internet. Checking email and voicemail first thing in the morning usually took up to an hour!

The internet is particularly useful for brides traveling to your state to get married. They check you out and contact you if you have a presence on the web. I think if you're really serious about

being in any kind of business these days, a web presence is a MUST! Maybe even more than the Yellow Pages!

We were also able to snag "Cake-o-gram" business......people would email or call us to have a cake delivered to a loved one......sort of like flowers.

[Wendy DeBord]

Thanks guys, now I know the web does work.

No one can defend what that person did. No one wants their work stolen in that way. I'm hoping you'll put a huge watermark across the front of your photos.........cause there are several shots of your work I'd love to print out and study.

Don't you hate the fact that book stores carry vertually no decent books on decorate/decorating cakes in their baking section? At the most you can find Colettes books and Brauns, but anyone who's into decorating, already owns those. It's frustrating to buy books thru other sources because they usually don't have a return policy available. So I find the net the best book store in the world. Now we have the best decorators limiting how long you can view their photos on the net..........I hate that, I can barely focus before the shot is gone.

[Manoras]

Now we have the best decorators limiting how long you can view their photos on the net..........I hate that, I can barely focus before the shot is gone.

Wendy, there's a way to get around that. You can print a picture that has been created in Flash by hitting the printscreen button on your keyboard (for the picture you want to save or look at) and pasting it in another program like Photoshop or even Word and voila! You can edit the picture in Photoshop but not in Word.

Mona

[Kris]

Lovely cakes! Nice site too.

Only thing I'd like to see is a cake flavor listing...

Maybe I missed it though?

[joshalow]

Thanks for the suggestion Kris- I'll have to add it to the FAQ page.