An Interview With Ann Butler From Love It Cakes

Ann Butler of Love It Cakes

 

BeTeamRed is a collaboration of 200 sugar artists from around the world focusing on World AIDS Day.  The collaboration launches on December 1st, i.e. World AIDS Day.  As part of the countdown to the launch, for the next few days I’m going to be interviewing sugar artists who are new to collaborations. Here is an interview with Ann Butler from  Love It Cakes.  Love It Cakes is also on Facebook.

1.Tell me about yourself. How long have you been decorating? Do you decorate professionally?

I am 50 just me and hubby at home, I have two children both grown up, I have two grand children Amelie 6 and Oliver 3, I look after Oliver during the week and take Amelie to and from school. I started off 33 yrs ago when my aunt Ange taught me the basics – i.e. mixing sugarpaste colours, icing basics and modeling basics. My aunt sadly passed away many years ago. I never got into making cakes until my granddaughter was born and I made her birthday cake for her 2nd birthday. It was very poor compared to what I do now, but I was so proud of it and proud of all the compliments. From then on I googled constantly then joined Facebook and was constantly looking at cakes and was hooked, then was making xmas cakes and everyone’s birthday cakes and watched and followed you tube, people’s tutorials and books, magazines. I came up with my facebook page name as all cakes I was looking at and when people commented about a nice cake was saying “love it!” Hence “love it cakes”. I entered my first competition at cake international excel in London 2014 and won a bronze for a wardrobe and figures from the lion the witch and the wardrobe. I cried when I went on line and see I got bronze I was with my son. He hugged me.  I am learning all the time and hope to one day start teaching. I have a small business which is building all the time, I only do it evenings and weekends till both grandchildren are at school then I can input more to my business.

 

 

2.Tell me about your piece. What was your inspiration? What is your piece made from and how did you make it?

 

My piece consists of 2 tiers with people all around the bottom tier with the occasional ribbon on, top tier was women in red with 1 single 0 on, on top is a little girl in red and at base is her mum. My thought behind it, people gradually being aware of the need of their help and her mum is the generation of needing help and the child being in the generation of help being offered. They are both dummy cakes (bottom is old cake) I covered then when dry cut out the people using 4 different cutters and flower modeling paste, I hand made the individual ribbons and placed on using a dab of water.I made the mother and child using flower/modeling paste (Renshaws, which I love). I used these simple methods as I do not get a lot of time as I look after my grandchildren then do my cake business evenings and weekends, so it had to be something simple and quick to do.

3.Tell me about being part of a collaboration for the first time. What are some of the challenges that you faced? What did you enjoy most about being in this collaboration?

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