Sparkles Cakes
and Wedding Accessories Ltd
Sparkles Cakes are here to guide you through every stage of your cake design until you are 100 percent satisfied with it. Then we will make and present you with a cake that will absolutely delight you.
Sparkles Cakes and Wedding Accessories - Company History
Many years ago while still at school I became very interested in Home Economics and Textiles. I found, much to everyone’s surprise, that these two subjects came quite naturally to me. I was only 13 back then, so it's taken me nearly 40 years to finally realise my dream of starting my own business working from home, and doing the two things that I love.
In 1991 I went to night school to learn about the finer art of cake decorating but I wasn’t financially in a position to be able to give up my job and take up cake decorating for a living.
Much to my delight, I was made redundant in February 2005 after spending 27 years working in a bank. Now with my two daughters, Sarah and Claire, financially secure, I felt it was the right time to take the bull by the horns and set up my own business. So here I am!
In Spring 2006 Channel 4 ran a series of programmes presented by Gaby Roslin called ‘Life Begins Again’ and on the 18th April I was lucky enough to be featured.
Filming took a whole 12 months and the business and my family went through many changes before completion. It was a wonderful opportunity to have the birth of our company documented in this way and the programme has brought with it much work and lots of new friends.
For those of you who have seen the programme you will have realised that none of it would have been possible if it hadn’t been for my husband, Paul, who built me a wonderful three roomed cabin at the bottom of our garden.
This unique premises provides me with a safe, self reliant building to carry out my business in, that was originally beyond my wildest dreams. For that I thank Paul from the bottom of my heart!
Now, where does Sarah come into this? Well, I strongly believe that every child displays a natural talent and it is important as a parent to recognise that talent and encourage your child to follow that path. During the last few years at school Sarah was always interested in cooking so we persuaded her to go to college to do a NVQ in Food Catering and Hospitality, which she did. She left college two years later in 2002 to take up a position as a chef at Selfridges in Manchester. However, both our daughters are very ambitious (our eldest, Claire, opened her own day nursery at the age of 20) and Sarah felt that she too wanted the opportunity to have her own company. So we combined her talents with mine and gave birth to Sparkles Cakes and Wedding Accessories Limited.
The name ‘Sparkles’ was Sarah’s idea and something she wanted to call her business when she was still at school. Later we hope to expand into outside catering, which will be purely Sarah’s domain.
By 2008 I had become restless working from home, and to be honest I wasn’t time managing my hours very well so decided to take the plunge and look for a shop. By pure chance and coincidence I accidently took the wrong road one day and found myself sitting in a traffic que outside a lovely little shop that was for sale. It was everything I’d ever dreamed of and not far from where both my daughters were living. Taking the Estate Agents number down I soon phoned him and arranged a viewing.
The shop had been closed for a while and was in great need or renovation. However, a sale price was agreed and builders brought on board and very soon my dream shop was taking place. With the final few tweaks by Paul (again!) I opened to the public on 2nd February 2009.
I haven’t decided exactly what to do with the cabin yet, but several people have made suggestions, most of which I’m completely ignoring! I think it will end up my personal escape pod where I can chill out More than likely though I think I will turn some of it into a play room for my darling grandchildren and I to enjoy.
Why not email us at contact@sparklescakes.co.uk
Contact us We don’t have to tell you what a wedding cake looks like. Or what a birthday, christening or anniversary cake looks like too. But what does your cake look like? Is it round or square? Petal shape or heart shape? One tier or six? White or ivory? Or maybe pink? Fruit or chocolate? Sponge or carrot? Difficult isn’t it? Well not with our help. Click here to see samples