All Good Things...

...must come to an end.

Yes, it's true. Plum Crazy Cake Company as it has been is coming to an end. We have enjoyed (mostly) every minute of this crazy adventure. Somehow through cake fails, late night/early morning baking and decorating, midnight dashes to the grocery store, and creating confectionery works of art, we have remained friends and would agree that we are better friends for it.

We will always be creative "partners in crime," but our run with cake has come to its finish line.

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Why, you may be asking? (Crying? Wailing?)

The simple answer is that there is just not enough time.

We started Plum Crazy Cake Company in August of 2010 and in spite of both of our respective talents (baker/marketing gal), we found that while fun, exciting, satisfying, it was also time-consuming and less fiscally feasible than we had additionally hoped.

You see it's really hard to be a wife, mother, sister, friend, daughter, housekeeper, cook, hostess and a business owner. And it's really hard to do the latter part-time "as the schedule allows". It's often all-too-easy to make the schedule the priority and then the other important things fall around it.

After the birth of Launa's 4th child and after Heather started homeschooling her children, it just became too difficult to keep up with. We decided in March of 2012 to give ourselves a break and then reassess in a few months. Those few months turned into nine until we finally sat down at the end of December and came to the somewhat painful decision that it was time to let go of our cake dreams.

But neither of us could really bear to give up on our super cute logo and all that we have poured into the business.

So...Plum Crazy Cake Company is not going away. Like many good things, it's evolving and becoming something...different.

And although we are not yet ready to share what that "something different" is, we can assure you that it's going to be amazing and redeeming and that Plum Crazy cake goodness will continue to exist...

...but not for awhile.

But, we'll keep you posted until then!

And until then, we want to thank all of our friends and customers who supported us and gave two crazy girls a chance. Also, we have to give a BIG thank you to our husbands and families who were the ones who went without us many a night and then got a sleepy and grumpy wife/mom the next day. (Hopefully the cake samples we brought home helped ease that pain a bit!) We couldn't have done it without you!

So, this is not a goodbye, but a see you later....

With Much Gratefulness,

Launa & Heather

Celebrating "One"

Much like always, this summer has been a crazy busy time for us. Rather than being a mellow relaxation into a pool of cool and languid lazyness, both Launa and Heather have kept us the constant activity that seems to characterize our lives as mom of young children.

While Heather had a family reunion out of state and other summer activities, Launa had a better reason for sleepless nights and a full schedule of "To-Do's. She and her husband (and three other children) welcomed little Asher Phillip into the family in early August. Born just shy of 5 lbs, he is continuing to plump up nicely.

With both of us having teachers as husbands, our summers tend to stay full of activity since we have "daddy" home and plan a bevy of family fun activities to keep little hands and feet busy and enjoy that extra daddy time.

So with all that in mind, we decided to take some time off from making cakes and just enjoy (and let Launa recover and get some sleep!)

We did, however, celebrate two special first year celebrations. The first was our very own one-year anniversary for our business, Plum Crazy Cake Company, on July 20th. Circumstances (many listed above) prohibited us from celebrating with an appropriate beverage, but we hugged and congratulated each other and making it through a crazy, fun, stressful, fulfilling first year in business. We wouldn't want to do this with anyone else.

The other was for a sweet little boy who turned one in July. With Launa indisposed, Heather took on the bulk of the cake order herself. While not the first time she has taken the lead on a project, it's the first time she has baked and decorated the entire thing without Launa present (although she did get some help with some fondant work - yay!). The order was for a puppy dog cake for little Owen (who loves dogs). So, we did a two-tiered fondant covered cake and a smaller personal cake for the birthday boy to dig into.

Two tiered puppy dog cake with personal cake for the birthday boy

Close up

We heard from his mom and grandma that Owen dived into his cake like a champ and greatly enjoyed it. Happy Birthday, Owen!

After making sure we were all squared away on our quarterly business taxes and annual state tax, Heather temporarily closed up shop on the business side of things and enjoyed time with her family.

Launa didn't stop dabbling in cake, though. She made a fun cake creation for her youngest sibling to mark both her high school graduation and preparations to leave to go away to her first year of college.

Tiered cake with mini "grad hat" cakes

Close up of tiered cake

After getting our children squared away in their new year of school and getting our bearings (somewhat), we are feeling ready once again to take on more orders. Our next project will be a "welcome home" party for a sweet little six-month-old boy who has been adopted into a loving family. With adoption especially close to our hearts (Launa has an adopted daughter and Heather has an adopted nephew), we are thrilled to be able to provide the "yummy" for this particular celebration.

Launa is also feeling ambitious (and energized) enough to seriously consider entering a demo cake or two into the Fresno County fair in a few weeks. We'll keep you posted.