Coco Cake Cupcakes - feature #5

Company: Coco Cake Cupcakes
Name: Lyndsay Sung
Website links: www.cococake.com, www.cococakecupcakes.blogspot.com

What do you make?
Nowadays I make baked-from-scratch cupcakes, decorated with a vintage aesthetic that often borders on ridiculously cute. I also sometimes make cakes, and I dabble in ice cream recipes and frozen yogurt too.



What or who inspires you?
Other artist ladies who are doing it for themselves; famous bakers and lovely, well -deisgned bakeshops around the world such as Miette in San Francisco and Trophy Cupcakes in Seattle; my insanely talented group of friends; people with amazing blogs with amazing photos, the kids who I teach art to, because they are so hilarious and make super awesome art. Also, a fat cat sitting in a windowsill always makes me laugh and inspires me to make something cute or funny. I also love vintage baking books and vintage children’s design, from kid’s toys to cute lamps to great patterns.



How did you get started?
My grandma gave me a pink Kitchen Aid for a wedding present. It sat unused for a few months in a cupboard. My husband said, “bring that puppy out! Otherwise you’ll never use it!” I started using it and couldn’t stop. I love it. I started making weird muffins, and trying all sorts of baked recipes. I got obsessed. I read a lot and researched a lot of techniques online and in books, and then tried them all out. Lots of failures and then lots of success! I started a blog for fun, and it’s really exploded with lots of really nice people who read it. Then I did a friend’s wedding in the Fall of 2008 (not very long ago!), then I did the Toque fair at the Western Front at Christmas, and since then it’s been a giant cupcake snowball effect!



What are your favourite ingredients to work with?
Butter. Unsalted butter. Beautiful stuff. Pure vanilla extract, good cocoa powder. I have a zillion frosting tips and fun little tools for creating faces and animals and pretty borders and buttercream roses. I obsessively buy cute cupcake liners. I always draw out my cupcakes or cake before I delve into it, so I have a butter-grease stained and icing-sugar-covered homemade sketchpad of funny drawings of cupcakes and cakes.

What is the hardest and most favourite part of crafting?
The hardest thing for me right now is making a huge mess in my own kitchen that I have to clean up a few times a day, and then make dinner! (though my husband often makes dinner too!) I got really tired of being in the kitchen for a while so I kind of stopped cooking. But now I’m rolling back into it. It’s just part of how I’m working at the moment. I guess another hard part is thinking about my labour and how much time I spend on my cupcakes and cakes. I am working on adjusting my prices to reflect the labour a bit more, but without scaring off customers. My fave part about my baking is the joy people get out of my creations--! When Coco Cake customers get so excited about something I’ve worked hard on, I feel happy for an entire day. And when people send me pictures of their kids or themselves with my cakes and cupcakes with huge smiles on their faces, that makes me SO happy!



List 5 of your favourite links and why you like them
Poppytalk: I love Jan’s design blog “Poppytalk”. It’s a local Vancouver blog but she has readers from everywhere. The design is wonderful, the things she writes about and finds are totally inspiring, from vintage objects to well-designed home décor and beautiful crafts, and Jan is super supportive of Canadian artists and crafters and has a Poppytalk Handmade art market dedicated to artists’ work, letterpress, craft, vintage stuff... She’s just so cool!

My sis, who is a graphic designer, has an awesome blog called “Love Love Letterpress.” She’s been in love with letterpress for a long time, and she seeks out beautiful letter press design and writes about it on her blog, complete with lots of pictures.

Where The Lovely Things Are: Another great blog, collecting art, gorgeous pictures of stylish and interesting clothing that I drool over, well-designed things and vintage items in one nicely designed and sweetly written blog.

Spearmint Baby: I’ve been super into Spearmint Baby lately, which is a blog dedicated to cool finds for kids—kid’s design, cute clothes, vintage toys, objecst for the home, tips, wallpaper, etc. I love vintage children’s design which makes this blog a new favorite of mine. They recently had a post on 1970s kids rooms and I almost died, the rooms were so bonkers and cute. I dunno if my husband would be into decking our place out too majorly in that style. But I can’t wait to deck out a future kid’s room all crazy!!

I read and follow quite a few cake and cupcake blogs too. It’s great to see what’s out there. Everyone is very supportive of each other, which is awesome. I read Cake Spy from Seattle, the Food Librarian, oh man too many to mention. Some have really super-amazing photos, such as Cannelle Vanille; when I see her photos I want to throw my photos in the garbage! Not really though.



Do you have any advice for those in the biz?
I’m lucky because I have another great job that I like (teaching art to kids) so I don’t fully rely on the monetary unsteadiness of whether or not I have orders every day, although I’m also lucky because since I started baking I do have lots of orders every week, (mostly weekends though, so I can never go out anymore because I have to get up really early!) so this past term I cut down my hours teaching to spend more time baking. I think my advice would be, to just go out there and do it. Try it. Have fun, be courteous, be supportive of others and make something you’re really into. It will show if you’re really into it. Have a fine sense of craftswomanship. I think if you’re already in the biz and you don’t have a blog, you should totally start one. It’s an amazing concept with tons of networking opportunities, ways to make new pals and a fun way to document all the cool stuff you’re producing.

Art vs. Craft - Are these terms different? Do you consider yourself an artist or a crafter?
I suppose the old use of the word craft sort of conjures up images of old ladies or housewives making squishy faced dolls out of old brown nylons and cotton batting, with black pins as eyes and handsewn mouths. I do see art and craft as having defining lines, yet they blur very magically. I love the mixture of the two. I believe crafters are artists, but I bet some crafters wouldn’t think of themselves as artists, but more as hobbyists, whereas some artists who sell work at craft fairs wouldn’t think they were making crafts, but art.



I think of myself as a crafty artist. I like to learn new things and techniques and I like to apply them immediately!

Thanks for the interview! I learned a lot about myself from writing this!

(photo images courtesy of Lyndsay / Coco Cake Cupcakes)

If you are interested in being featured, please send us an email at info(at)gotcraft(dot)com.

pomomama design - feature #4

Company: pomomama design
Name: Amanda
Website links: www.pomomamadesign.com



What do you make?
In a nutshell, I make jewelry and accessories from wire, metal and fibre, usually as wire crochet incorporating glass and gemstone beads with fibre elements. I also sew, knit and crochet with more traditional materials. Two new skills are art clay silver and metalwork which I hope to use more frequently.

What or who inspires you?
My parents' garden in Scotland (http://www.micklegarth.co.uk/), where I grew up, still inspires me. The fibre bug came about after meeting Tanis Alexis at the first Vancouver Etsy sellers meet up, way back in summer 2006. I got her felted cuff and handmade felt in the crafty gift swap. Artists Deebs and Kirsten Chursinoff both inspire further fibre adventures, and William Morris for the sheer beauty of design.



How did you get started?
I needed to mend the jewelry that my son was breaking! I was also homesick and wanted to wear some of the seaglass from Scotland and Northumberland brought with me to Canada. Once I got started I found that settling down with something crafty kept me occupied and relatively sane as a new mum.

My first creative adventures started with painting classes once my son could be left for more than an hour. First it was a “Mums' Night Out with Art” run by a local community centre, where we could try a new art technique each evening, and then a weekend course in colour theory. Sadly, the painting thing, even though I loved it, just didn't fit in with the SAHM schedule - my acrylics kept drying up when I had to attend to my son. It was very frustrating!

Following a house move from Vancouver, life got even more frustrating. As a diversion I took a beginner wirework class at my local bead shop and found that I could wire wrap my seaglass and wear it. Then I discovered Etsy and ebb and flo was born. My hobby had to be financially self-sufficient right from the start and selling online/at craft fairs seemed to work.

What are your favourite materials to work with?
wire .... any kind of wire that will yield to the crochet hook (artistic plated wire, sterling and fine silver, copper, brass), hand dyed roving (alpaca is a firm favourite), glass (handmade fused or beach glass)



What is the hardest and most favourite part of crafting?
The hardest part is finding the time! I craft in, around and in spite of my family in an effort to stay sane ... but family life does come first. There just aren't enough hours in the day to pack it all in and by evening I'm often too tired to do anything other than snooze.

My favourite part of crafting is seeing something take shape in my hands where it has only existed in my head up until that moment. Usually it works (but there are some hideous apparitions best left in the closet ...). I also love selling in person - nothing beats seeing a buyer snatch up one your pieces and get totally excite about finding it! I have had some very passionate customer!



List 5 of your favourite links and why you like them
Flickr: it's great! an online gallery and portfolio (stick to the 'no selling' rulle though!) which you can blog from, order prints thru, join in social networking, make slideshows ...... need I go on?

Made By Hand. By ME: a great multi-purpose site but specifically for crafters. again, you can blog, promote, tweet, make wish lists, make spotlights (like the etsy treasury though not so tedious waiting for a slot to open up!)

Twitter: another multi-function social networking site (are you picking up a theme here? I try to be efficient with my time since it's in short supply). Within your twitterverse and with just a few widgets and applications you can publicise your blog and etsy, etc. listings, update your Facebook status, share interesting news items, promote yourself, and so on

Maille Artisans: I don't look at many how-to's for jewelry on the web but this site is a great one for learning new chainmaille weaves

Giant Hamster: I tweet with a capybara, what more can I say?

Do you have any advice for those in the biz?
Keep a simple accounts sheet for your business, detailing all expenditure and incoming cash. It will help you plot what is working and where your profit is coming from (or being spent on). Do it right from the start! and be diligent!



Art vs. Craft - Are these terms different? Do you consider yourself an artist or a crafter?
I think inwardly there is no difference between the terms. If you consider that art is something that makes you feel accomplished or is beautiful/thought-provoking/satisfying then it's easy to apply to your own work. However, as an external label it's much more difficult to categorise. I think a lot of craft is art, but the distinction seems on a much more personal level. There certainly does seem to be a snobbish cachet about being considered an artist but since I never went to art school it probably flies right over my head.

I have occasionally been referred to as an artist but I'm not sure I would use that term myself. I’ve recently been accepted into a local artists’ cooperative so I guess I must be one! In my dreams it would be lovely to have my work be part of an exhibition - then I might openly refer to myself as an artist!

(photo images courtesy of Amanda / pomomama design)

If you are interested in being featured, please send us an email at info(at)gotcraft(dot)com.