About Arianna
Welcome to Arianna’s Designs! I am so excited about this website. Everything that I have a passion for is within these pages. When I was just 11 years old I ventured out to make a 3 tier heart wedding cake in my mom’s kitchen. After about 8 hours of flying sugar and intense concentration, my first masterpiece was completed. I knew then I was “Destined to Design Cakes”
My love for cakes stayed with me through college and beyond. After receiving my BS in Family and Consumer Sciences with a minor in Speech Communication at Western Carolina University in 1993, I continued my studies abroad at the Krisala Institute in Melbourne, Australia, focusing on early childhood development (which by the way, wasn’t much help for a cake career but great for acquiring knowledge about the four children that would be in my future). In August of 1993, I opened my own bake/specialty store front. When my first child was born, six years later, I decided to downsize and take my business home. This gave me the opportunity to bake while being at home with my children. Babies and baking became my life. You see, within the next 6 years I had 4 children and continued to pursue my love of cakes while continuing to be a “stay-at-home” mom.
In 1997, I was awarded the “Young Entrepreneur Award” for Uptown Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce. In 1998, I was selected to represent Lexington State Bank in a regional television commercial highlighting my cake decorating talents. In Lexington, NC i was the baked goods judge for the Davidson county fair for 7 years.
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As the years progressed, I was able to venture my business to numerous counties and bordering states. My cake artistry abilities were expanded upon taking classes with world renowned sugar artist, Nicholas Lodge, designer of Princess Diana’s wedding cake. I also have had the honor of training under Norm Davis and Julie Bashore.
In addition to running Arianna’s Designs, I have been an instructor at Tri-County Technical College. My classes included working with rolled fondant and gumpaste sugar artistry in the culinary arts department. I also am a guest sugar artist at The Culinary Institute of the Carolinas. I demonstrate various fondant techniques and sugar flower work.
I have been featured in the magazine, Upstate Parent, and various other local publications. In December of 2010 i entered my first cake competition and won 3rd runner up. What an honor.
What makes me even want to design?
I wake up every morning to the faces of 4 beautiful children that I have been so blessed with. Their desire and drive to learn more about the world each day through their journeys and adventures is such a pure joy for me.
They are inquisitive on how this does that and that does this. It starts with the desire to learn. We are always learning and growing. I hope I can instill in my children that we have a voice to be heard and a gift to be given back. Finding that gift is part of our journey. My gift is to design cakes. May this website be a journey for me that continues to make me shine daily and give back to so many the knowledge I have acquired and the enjoyment of doing so.
