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Each month we feature one of our talented customers and share with you their story and tasty tips. This months featured creator started her own business designing & printing edible images for her customers to use on their own creations. Read how Janifer created a great little business for herself.

Cake Crumbs with Janifer's Edible Cake Toppers

1. How did your edible image business journey begin?

Nearly 2 years ago I was speaking with a family member about her edible printing business and I thought why not give it a go and that’s where Janifer’s Edible Cake Toppers began.

I was living in Sydney at the time and she was in a Narrandera. Knowing someone who also used the same printing system and software meant we were able to solve some issues together. It took a few months to get it off the ground, but once the word got out I realised that there was a big market for it, as no one in my area offered the same personalised services. Everything fell into place after that, there were times when things just flowed and then there were stressful moments when technology just played up and always at the worst times. I can’t thank the staff at EIS enough for all their support and guidance throughout these times, there’s been laughs, tears and sighs of relief when it all worked again.

At the end of 2017 we relocated to Eden/Merimbula NSW and this became another hurdle in my journey as I had to start fresh and build my client base again with a fresh new outlook on advertising especially due to the coastal area I live in and I needed fun catchy adverts to get peoples attention. My business has been welcomed by so many lovely cake makers and new friends that I am slowly gaining more business through word of mouth.

2. What has starting your own business meant for you?

Starting my own business was a learning curve for me, at the beginning it was a challenge to balance work, life and finances but after the first 2 months things got easier and I was able to pay off my initial business outlay and maintain a positive income. The juggle was worth it as I was able to build it up enough to pay for itself but also to add income to our household and remain a stay at home mum to three children.

3. As a direct supplier to cake makers & decorators, how do you think using edible images benefits them?

Many cake makers and decorators love the edible images as it can save them time on their creations. A lot of decorators use the edible icing for words, names and numbers, silhouettes and smaller images that can be time consuming to create with layers of fondant. It has also given them a chance to expand their own creations, for example using edible icing prints to create exact images on their cupcakes and cookies instead of using fondant and the images all being that tiny bit different.

This image is from a new customer and instead of painting the silhouettes by hand she had them printed and then hand cut them saving her hours of freehand painting.

4. What’s your favourite type of design to create?

I absolutely love making the film strip images for cakes. Yes, it is time consuming with all the editing, cropping and ensuring the images are in place but once they are positioned on the cake you see an amazing timeline of someone’s treasured memories.

5. What is the current trend you’re seeing in edible images?

From all the images I have created and printed the cake and cupcake toppers are always popular, but people are becoming more and more creative with how they use them. My clients are now using the prints on cake pops, macaroons, doughnuts and chocolate dipped strawberries.

6. What is the funniest/most unusual image you’ve been asked to create?

I was asked once to print a photo of a person sitting on the lounge in their dressing gown on an A3 page, and well, it certainly was one I will never forget because once it was printed I don’t think they were wearing anything under it.

7. Do you have any tips you can share when either printing or applying edible images?

I have discovered so many things throughout my journey, my biggest tip is to make sure you do regular maintenance on your printer, not only the printer head and cartridges but also make sure your rollers are clean especially if you have been printing a lot of black or solid colours. A tip when printing is make sure you check the preview before hitting print as I have come unstuck a few times, especially when printing A3 I have forgotten to change the paper size so I have wasted an icing sheet.

8. What is your career highlight to date?

My biggest highlight to date would be having the owner and creator of the software Topperoo call me personally to ask my opinion on what I love about the program, if there was anything that needs attention, if I had any ideas of how to make the software templates better and more user friendly and my opinions on their new pricing. It was an amazing feeling knowing that I was just a regular customer and they wanted to hear my personal opinions. Once the new software was released in January I felt a little proud as I saw some of my suggestions put into place and was acknowledged on their Facebook page.