So after having my last child and seeing the amount of money people spent on gifts for her, I had the great idea to make and sell baby gifts (primarily Nappy Cakes) online. “Fantastic!” I thought, “How hard can it be – build some nappy cakes, take some photos and bang ‘em on a website. I’ll be rolling in it within weeks, right?”. Wrong.

The first step was to actually design and make some nappy cakes, so I went shopping. I bought some nappies (obviously) and some face washers, bibs, rattles, dummies, towels, toys, soaps, wipes, and various other small items to fill the cake with. The prices were a little high as I just went to normal shops, but no problems, I’d source some cheaper wholesalers later on, or so I thought.

Back at home with my goodies, I attempted to build a nappy cake, but wait, the nappies have to be individually rolled as the first step – back to the shops for elastic bands.

Back at home with everything I needed, the design process began. One tier, two tier and three tier cakes were built and then I just needed to decorate them. Once I’d decided what items would be included with each size cake, I tried to arrange them to be as pretty as possible. Then I tried again, and again, and again. Then I tried just throwing everything at them from 6 feet away, but I still felt it lacked a little something, so I re-did them, again.

Several frustrating hours later, while out the back getting a nicotine fix (I’m quitting soon, I promise), my seven-year-old daughter arranged my pile of random items into a beautiful three tiered nappy cake, and the design is almost exactly the one I still use for this size.

Large Girl Cake

Three tiered cake

Once we’d made a few more trips to the shops (I’m sure it was less than 12, don’t listen to my husband) for ribbon, tule, curling ribbon, cellophane, cake boards, decorations and various other bits-and-pieces, we had a range of adorable cakes ready for the eager public to rush out and purchase. Perfect, I thought, I’ll just whip up a website and sell them online – much easier and cheaper than renting a shop somewhere, and I’ll still have the time to look after the kids as well.

Simple? I don’t think so. You’ll find out more next time – The Website Begins

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