How did Sweet Stella Treats start? Have you always made cakepops? Will you make my son a cake? Is this just a hobby of yours? These are all questions I hear a lot...eerrr, maybe a few times a year, at least! So, it's obviously worthy of a blogpost right? Lets take it waaaaay back to 2008 when I had my first baby, Stella. I was in my 5th year of teaching Kindergarten at the sweetest little school, North Belmont Elementary. I loved teaching. I still do. My husband and I always knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home Mom, and thankfully we were blessed enough to live that dream. I went on Maternity Leave in November of 2008 and Stella came 9 days late, on December 1st. A few months after being home, I got a crazy idea to do something new.
It's a little hard to believe I've been doing cakes or some type of baking for almost 11 years! Crazy talK! When Stella was born in December of 2008, I would catch myself, in the middle of the night, watching the hit show, "Ace of Cakes". My thoughts would drift off to all the cute birthday cakes she would have as she got older...except there was one problem. I didn't know anyone who could make super cute cakes. So, I started researching and decided to start cupcakes. First off, let me say this: for all those customers, or should I say friends, who bought cupcakes from me while i was still "learning" and your cupcakes may or may not have been dry, or even edible...I apologize. Haha! My goal was to make everything from scratch and I stuck with that goal, but lets just say a whole lot was thrown in the trash. I learned how to make fondant, buttercream icing and vanilla cupcakes from scratch. Just vanilla. Not too long after, I introduced chocolate that I still love, but never accepted a really big order, because let's be honest... I couldn't figure out how to make the recipe bigger than just doubling it without messing it up. I remember so many little things about this season. I remember cutting out that NC logo for the cupcake topper below and I felt like I won the lottery. Anytime I could make a pretty swirl with icing made me feel like I could open a shop in NYC and succeed...well, maybe not NYC, but little 'ol Denver, maybe? There was so much to learn, though. I loved the challenge. i'd like to take notice, too, that apparently after looking back at some of these pictures, there was something about taking a picture angled that made it more magical? That makes me laugh.
I posted a few pictures on Facebook and put the word out that I was open for business! Surprisingly, the orders started to come. It seemed with every order I would learn something new. I started making fondant toppers for all the cupcakes to go along with the "theme" of the party. That was my favorite part. Creating somthing "cute". I loved the excitement of getting an order. I loved coming up with designs...I still love that part.
If I had a business...that also meant I needed a business name, right? I somehow wanted to have Stella's name in it somewhere, so we came up with "Sweet Stella Treats", and 11 years later, it's still a little hard to say, but there's no going back now. I stayed with cupcakes for several months and then cakes made their way in to the mix in December of December 2009, when Stella was just a year old... and boy did it get busy then...
To be continued in Part 2...