When you order products what do the shipping and handling fees cover?
1. The time to download your orders off of the internet, pull your products and physically process your order
2. Cost of envelopes and boxes
3. Packing supplies such as the packing peanuts, tape, bubble wrap, and address labels
4. Time to physically take the mail to the post office (3 miles) or UPS (4 miles away) if you want express mail.
5. Time in finalizing your orders online and processing the credit card information
6. Time in figuring the postage for your package
Time is money - A person who is taking care of this part of the business can't be productive elsewhere
I hope this helps you understand why those charges are necessary. The cost of shipping will be adjusted up or
down to reflect the actual postage cost in mailing your ordered items.

OVERNIGHT SHIPPING - is it really overnight
YES - if you live in a large city
NO - if you live in a small town outside of a large city - it is then two days
Minimum cost of overnight shipping is $20.00 if it is light weight - 1 lb or less
This requires a special trip (6 miles) to the post office so time is also an element in this shipping. When ordering items that are heavy such as flavorings, fondant and books postage will always be higher than figured online.

Do I really have to order a minimum of $50 to have you ship me something?No you don't.  But, it is to your advantage to wait until you need to order several things before ordering.  One $5 item with the handling fee of $5 and the postage added will cost you approximately $12.00.   If that is all you want and you are willing to pay double for one item that I will ship you that one item.  But, if you need several items that total $50  that handling fee is still $5 so your handling fee is better absorbed into the larger sum of items you are ordering.  Postage will be charged according to the actual postage.  It is shown a minimum of $5 but if you want instruction pages only the actual postage cost might be $1.06 and your postage will be changed to reflect that. Most packages will be mailed priority mail (3 - 4 days delivery) unless you specify you want them shipped different.  If I must take your package into town to mail it the handling fee will go up to $10.

I really need those Puff Base instructions immediately. Can you send those through the e-mail or fax them to me?Sorry they are loaded with graphics and not in a format that would work in the e-mail. I can send them by fax if you would like to call 806-745-2230 and give me a credit card number.  There will now be a minimum fee of $15 to cover the cost of faxing them to you.   I have gone back through the phone records and found that faxing the instructions was costing me way more than I had anticipated. Therefore I have had to up the cost of that service.

Can you send them express mail? If you want them mailed to you express mail/overnight - you will be charged the extra postage plus a $10 handling fee if I have to run them into town. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

How do you support the cakes if you can't afford the stress free support system? #1. I only used straws for support one time and nearly lost that cake- so needless to say I DO NOT recommend you use those for support in a stacked cake. I also feel that all the support systems that only use 1/4 inch legs, dowels or wooden dowels are not good. Those are two small in diameter to trust them to stay in place and not lean to one side if you should have to make a sudden stop while transporting your cakes. #2.  If you need to use something fairly inexpensive and stable the best thing I found and used for years was the white Wilton hollow dowels.  Cut those just slightly shorter than your cake (with a serated knife) and place cardboards (covered on both sides with contact paper) on top.   Many of the cakes on this web site were assembled that way - this system is very sturdy. #3. The absolute best support system I have ever used is that stress free support system - Those are small diameter support legs but they are attached to the stainless steel rings and cannot lay down or lean - but if you can't afford that system -here is what I did before I had those. #4. Make sure your bottom boards under all the cakes are strong enough to support all of the cake without bending. Of course the puff base under the cake is a strong secure underneath support. On top of that puff base I use a Wilton's Crystal Plate (white plate - clear twist legs) the same size as the base cake or slightly smaller. On top of that goes a little fresh icing with a contact covered cardboard (1side) on top of the fresh icing.Fresh Icing goes on the top of the contact covered cardboard. One layer of leveled cake (top side up)Icing or filling Second layer of leveled cake (top side down)Icing on that tier. Measure the height of the cake and icing. Cut 4 to 7 Wilton hollow dowels just slighty shorter than the cake and icing in that tier. Probably 1/16 of an inch shorter. Insert those dowel supports into the cake to fit under the area where the tier above will be sitting. Larger cakes put the dowels in a circle approxmately 1 1/2 inches inside the outer perimeter of the above tier. Add a little fresh icing for glue Place a contact covered cardboard (2 sides) on top of the wet icing and continue building your layers and tiers. Most of the time we build each tier on top of the contact covered cardboards and then put a little fresh icing on the center of the tier under it and place the whole tier on at one time. Repeat until you get all tiers stacked. I like those cakes stacked and glued (icing) together and left to sit overnight before decorating the cake.

How do you determine to use wedding cake servings or party cake servings?

A 12 inch round two layer cake my chart says serves 45 - Wilton's charts say it serves 56. So I would do a 12 or 13" round two layer cake if a customer wants 40 to 50 servings. . Most of our cakes are 4" + in height. So if the cake is higher we don't cut the size down - or if the cake is shorter we don't increase the size. There has to be a point when you just do what you do and don't worry about it. I have pieces of styrafoam cut the size of a serving. 2 X 2 by 2 inch square for sheet cakes and a 1 X 2 X 4 for a two layer cake. On cake decorator even covered those pieces with satin and lace trims to look like a fancy piece of cake. I show that to a customer if she wants to know the serving sizes. Then it is up to her to go by your serving info. Now if she wants a cake to serve 50 and you show her the serving size - she wants bigger servings - then she just needs to order more servings. You don't adjust your servings - you let her adjust her order for more servings for cake. Otherwise you are constantly adjusting what a customer wants. You can't do that - it will make you crazy and it isn't fair to you. The more cake they want - the more they should pay. VALUE what you do. You don't go into a bakery and tell them I want 50 servings and then tell them the size of the servings you want. It just doesn't work that way. They will tell you if you want more cake then go to the next size up which should serve ________...... Just because we are home decorators does not mean that we should let the customers take advantage of us - Your time and talents are worth what you charge - if you don't value what you do - why should they. Don't let yourself talk yourself into giving your product away just because you want to satisfy your need to give more. If you do more - they should pay more.
I hope this made some kind of sense for you. ...............................
Think about it this way - Say you go into a grocery store and pick up a loaf of bread - you count the slices and realize you are going to be 6 slices short for sandwiches for your party. So you either cut finger sandwiches out of the one loaf of bread to make it look like more - or choose to buy another loaf of bread. Your customer can choose to cut smaller sizes to serve the people or buy more cake in order to cut larger pieces. It is her choice - but you offer her the choice. It isn't practical to change the size of the serving on the type of cake you are making.

Recycle those oil jugs - I purchase the larger wide mouth jugs of oil to use in our baking. When we open those - 2 holes are punctured in the top seal - one in the back and one in the front. The back hole vents the jug the smaller hole in the front allows a pouring spout that is managable. After the jug is empty that top is pealed away and we fill it with the broken egg shells - put the lid back on it when it is full and then put it in the trash. We began doing this when we realized that the raw eggs were eating holes in the plastic trash bags.

What do you use for cake samples for the brides?Bake your extra batter in loaf pans - split them and use icing for filling. Cut them in small serving pieces, wrap them with saran wrap and store in rubber maid sealed containers. Zip lock bags don't seal well enough.

How do you transport the cakes already stacked? FIrst if the cakes are really huge we build and decorate the cake on top of the rolling cart. Once the cake is done then it is moved to one of the tables until time for delivery. Occasionally they are so heavy we just leave them on the cart until time to put them in the car. In that case we have a neighborhood young man who comes and helps us lift those cakes into the van and then move them back to the cart and onto the table at the reception site. The seats are removed for cake deliveries in the back of the van and non-skid mats or egg crate foam is placed on the floor. The cakes are then placed on the top of those.

Can you give me an idea for a _______________ birthday cake? I don't do birthday cakes any longer and haven't done them for customers for about 10 years. So I am really out of the loop as far as ideas for birthday cakes.

I want to start a home business doing cakes can you give me some advice on how to get started? etc. etc. etc. Please go to the Business of Cakes articles. I think you will find some very useful information there.

What brand are those lemon, orange and strawberry flavors you have? Those flavors come from VanLab Company. They only sell those flavors in large quantities to bakeries and food manafactors. They are extremely good flavoring and are the best I have been able to find. I must buy them in large quantities. But that gives me opportunity to make them available to you. You can't buy these flavorings in small quantities anywhere else that I know of.

In your recipes why do you have measurements for the eggs? If you buy small eggs and a receipe calls for 4 eggs you might be adding 1/2 Cup of eggs. If you buy the XLarge eggs 2 of those eggs might be 1/2 cup. The Italian Creame cake receipe was where I first realized that the measurment of the eggs is very important. After much frustration with that recipe and trying to figure out why I could never get a consistent result I started measuring the eggs. That totally fixed the problem with that receipe. Since then I have found that measuring the eggs is the answer for getting completely consistent results every time. How do you half a cake mix?Carolyn Wanke shared this little trick with me a very long time ago. Take the mix out of the box and flatten it out in the bag. Take a long straight spatula and play like you are cutting it in half. Now hold that down and flip the cake mix over the spatula so that the two halves hang over the top of the spatula. Cut one side open so that the cake mix will pour just from that side as you hold it over the spatula. Walla you have half of the cake mix still in the packaging and half of it poured out as you needed it.Do you ship cakes and can you give me a price on the ________ cake? I just put some pricing on the cakes on the web site. I had so many requests that I thought it might make this easier for you as well as me. Pricing all over the country is so different that I feel it is really important for you to talk to the person who might be doing your cakes. It is unfair for me to give you a price and for you to expect your decorator to charge the same price. Pricing in the large metropolitan areas is normally higher. Pricing in small towns and rural areas tends to be lower than I charge. So the decorator you talk to might give you a much lower or higher price depending on their skill level and where they live. If you are getting married in the North-Western part of Texas I would be glad to talk to you about specifics of your cake including the price if the date is open on my calendar.  Read the article on Pricing here.I do not ship cakes at all. I will be glad to deliver your cakes if you are willing to pay the delivery fee and the delivery is within a 300 mile radius of Lubbock, TX._________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How do you add your name on top of the cakes in your photos?

I use Photoshop Elements 2 software and this is the process used.

Open the photo in Photoshop Elements 2.   Crop the photo to the size you want it, resize it.   Now click on the typing tool and type your name on the photo, highlight the typing and change to the size you want on your photo,  Click on the moving tool and move the name to the approximate place you want it.  Click on Image, scroll down to rotate, scroll down to free rotate and put the name at the angle you want on your cake photo.  When you have it just right click on effects and scroll down to Brushed Metal (or whatever effect you want), click on that.  It will change the type if you like it then go to Layer and scroll down to flatten layer and then save your photo and that name will now be a permanent part of that particular photo.  If at any step of that process you do not like what you have done you can go to Window and scroll down to Undo History and go back as many steps as you like.  Or all the way back to the original photo and start all over again.