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1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes (1000 Series) $14.99 If you want ideas for decorating – this is the book! The photos found here are a feast for your eyes and imagination. Glorious full-color photographs of beautiful, outrageous, and deliciously decorated desserts of all kinds. From wedding cakes to cupcakes and cookies – page after page of pictures will provide you with the inspiration you need. Perfect for cake decorators who want to expand their r… |
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Cakes to Dream On: A Master Class in Decorating $21.93 Product Description”Whether blowing out birthday candles or cutting the first piece at a wedding, there are no cakes better suited to wishing and dreaming than Colette’s enchanting creations.” –Donna Ferrari, Food & Wine Director, BRIDE’S Magazine “Colette is an inspired artist who follows a road never-before traveled. Her cakes are amusing and loveable, and they defy gravity. Colett… |
Cupcake Classes London!
Cupcake Making Classes Cupcake Making Workshops at The Peacock Bar London
Cupcake Classes London Questions
Best London venue for chocolate making classes for a hen party or birthday party?
I am looking for a London venue for chocolate making classes or chocolate making lessons combined with cupcake classes for a combined birthday party and hen party. The emphasis is on fun – nothing too serious. Would be good to combine with maybe cocktails, champagne or afternoon tea (so the hen party can eat them not lug them around London). And this ideally an afternoon activity
I am a chef in a top London restaurant and I had to undertake exactly this exercise for my fiance’s hen night. Start by looking on sites like Viewlondon and Gohen, they have a huge range of activities for hen parties and stuff to get ideas BUT avoid booking through them as they are often over priced and you can get better deals elsewhere. I would also avoid the “kitchen” type chocolate classes and cupcake classes too – sorry the idea that you can learn anything serious about chocolate making or cupcake making in an hour or two is ludicrous. These kind of places are good for proper courses but not for a fun afternoon out – kitchen’s are not fun they are serious I run one!
After calling around a few of my bar and restaurant contacts I sent my fiance’s hen party to Peacock Bar in Clapham Junction. They do a huge range of hen party afternoon activities including cupcakes, chocolate, cocktails, afternoon cream tea etc in a fabulous Rococo style venue. Their classes are all about dressing up, fun, photos and silliness.
Just the ticket for my fiance’s group and they had a great time which is what matters and lots of photos and chocolates to boot. The staff were apparently lovely and the whole place was buzzing with different groups of girls doing different activities with a few birthday and stag parties thrown in too. Their Frank Sinatra was also a big hit too apparently so well done Peacock Bar
I was also very impressed by the chocolates the girls made too and was about to eat my words about being able to be taught proper chocolate making in an afternoon – till they let it slip that Peacock staff always make a few perfect chocolates for you just in case you have too much fun on the day. Good try my dear almost fooled me!
How to turn your website design into a disaster
During many years of experience there are many mistakes that we are witness to but the most often occurring is the ‘grande design fiasco’.
Everybody has an idea of what their site should look like in terms of look and feel. Color is important as is the overall layout. A careful questionnaire is usually used to assess the clients target market and then target location. Age groups, business nature, are all factors that blend in to make a carefully customized design according to a persons/ companies design requirement.
Based on all of this useful information a good designer will in the first two attempts create something that will be practical, functional and hold the wow effect to keep visitors glued to the site once they get there.
But just like one of those disaster movies where everything is fine until the earth starts to shake, this is the calm before the storm.
So here’s how it starts, the first time web person suddenly remembers his last art class (which may have been 45 years ago) and wants shadowing around the letters and a mixture of five different colors and squirly fonts.
After careful consultation with his wife, mother, mother in law and the neighbors he then decides his site is not complete without a photo of Mitzy the cat who sadly passed away last year.
Then while dropping his kids to school he realizes how a picture of a baby is adorable and how his site can’t possibly go live without the baby photo. Imagine the traffic he would generate!
Finally although he wanted a site that would display his plumbing techniques he decides to make the most of his webspace and also sell the garden gnomes he makes on the weekends. Plus the wife does some really wicked cupcakes and could sell a few on the site during the holidays.
The result as you can understand ends up looking like something made by a 12 year old playing with his new paint set with lots of stuff going on in different directions. The visitor is left wandering what he is looking at and why.
This sadly is how a site design goes wrong. After evaluation and the first 3 rounds your site should be good to go. It should have all the elements that will make the site work, web 2.0 layout to keep the focus of the visitor where it should be on your core business purpose. A good web company will have Web Designers with usually at least 2 years of experience in the field of design (ours have 5) and will know what works and what doesn’t work. Using more than 3 colors is also a big no- no (unless your business is selling paint!).The colors distract and make your site look gaudy and too cluttered.
Our research shows your window of opportunity to ‘wow’ your first time visitor to your site is only 2 seconds. If your site doesn’t make sense and is too cluttered you will lose that valuable opportunity and no he won’t come back.
So although your feedback is essential towards the initial design phase, there should also be faith placed in the capabilities of the designer. A weird wacky layout might work if your site is a simple brochure but it also might be detrimental from a business sense if it makes it hard for the visitor to find something to buy.
The exceptions perhaps to this article would be those whose sites are all about art, designs, all about image and not user friendliness. Those whose priority doesn’t lie in SEO and have an established base of users and a renowned brand name. Most of these people usually have a very clear focus of their design and can be helped to create their vision avidly by designers.
Always remember the best sites in the world are the simplest. Doesn’t Google have a simple search bar and then very little else? No flash, no shooting stars and no photos of Mitzy.
Keyword:: Web Design and Development Company providing customized designs for startup and corporate companies. Focus on Ecommerce Website Design and Development with Scalable and search engine friendly coding. Based in London we provide excellent websites Design and Development Services throughout the United Kingdom.
About the Author
Green Dome Web Solutions
145-157 St. John Street
EC1V 4PY, London
United Kingdom
