This is me
My name is Jo Victoria Rose I started making cakes about 8 years ago. I made my sister a Tinkerbell cake and while I was making it, thought I really enjoy this. I also thought it looked amazing yet looking back now I have definitely improved 😂.
At the time I lived in Scarborough and worked full time as an assistant manager at Phones 4U. All of my spare time was filled with watching YouTube tutorials and I just practiced, practiced and practiced. I did about 8 more cakes for family and friends before I launched a Facebook page. Every time I got a new like it was the most exhilarating experience. When someone ordered one of my cakes I felt a complete rush of self worth and achievement that I had never felt before. My facebook page kept growing and growing but so did my career in the retail world. There was so many ups and downs in my 1st year. Some downs that really spring to mind were completing a cake that I absolutely loved and then fell with it while walking to take a picture in better lighting - every time I move a cake now I think back to this cake, I then had to work through the night to remake the cake. The other one was when my oven broke half way through baking one of my biggest orders, que complete melt down with tears and a lot of I cant do this. Thankfully a good friend came to my rescue and I just started again in a few hours time. No matter how many lows there were, the highs were so high that it made it all worth it.
My cakes were getting bigger and with much more detail the orders were coming in thick and fast and I was starting to really struggle with managing my time with a full time job, cake business and spending time with my fiancé. I was really stuck between what Job I loved the most, climbing up the retail ladder or building a business making cakes.
Then I was offered a promotion to store manager in York (1 hour 30 mins commute) I took the job with no hesitation as this is what I had worked really hard for and when I look back now I know I didn’t have enough self belief to actually feel I was good enough to turn cakes into a business.
So I started my new job, commuted everyday and made cakes every night. This is the part where my cake dreams all fell apart. I carried this on for nearly a year during this time my fiancé also got a job in York so we commuted together. This was literally the only time we spent together and then one day there was a crash on the A64 and it took me nearly 5 hours to get home. I walked trough the door cried a lot and said we either move to York or we get jobs back in Scarborough. So that’s what we did I shut down my cake business and moved to York.
6 Years later..
Daniel and I are now married we live in Ossett with our beautiful son Henry (he is nearly 3). I still work full time as a store manager and my husband works away.
Over the last 6 years I have made cakes for family and friends and have moved over to buttercream cakes as I love the look of them and lets be honest there much quicker to make.
One night when Henry was in bed I found myself scrolling on my phone, when I looked at the time I had completely wasted 3 hours of my life doing nothing productive. I thought about this and thanks to some inspiration from some amazing cake makers (#finchbakery & @hayleys_cupcakes) I decided to get back in the cake game.
I will be blogging my journey back into the cake industry and my next blog will be about how I’m keeping my business alive during the #Covid lockdown without actually selling anything.
So here we go Victoria Rose Cakes is back and hopefully bigger than ever. I really hope you want to follow me on my journey and if you would like to order any Cakes, Cupcakes or Brownies I’m your girl.
Jo xx
