All about us…..

So this is our first ever blog….milestone right there lol…. Blogs have been on our ‘to do list’ for some time, but it’s hard to find the time between baking cakes, emailing, hanging out with our families and the generally craziness of the Cut Me Off A Slice world, but now I can give it a big tick!! woohoo.

So I thought it would make sense to start our blogging journey with a bit of an intro to us, myself (Rachel) and Lisa, and how this crazy venture started….. so here goes….

This is the most recent picture of us on a trip to London for The Wedding Industry Awards where we were up for Best Wedding Cake Designer in the National finals; having won the Regional round. Unfortunately we didn’t win the Nationals but we had the most amazing evening and made some lovely new friends amongst the wedding cake world.

Lisa and I met about 10 years ago, in our youth, before kids and cakes were even a lightbulb spark in our brains. Well I had attempted 1 or 2 cakes (hesitently inserted below) but the idea of it some day being a business would never have entered my mind, clearly I had no idea what I was doing, but 10/10 for trying hahaha.

Please note, it is not a good idea to remove icing sugar marks with jam….the shine doesn’t go away

Our friendship began with myself going to the salon my twin sister worked in to have my hair done for a Saturday night out, and spending the entire time convincing Lisa to join me, she resisted at first, but my persuasive nature soon changed her mind. Since then we have had A LOT of laughs and made some amazing memories and lay the foundation for what I think is a truly solid friendship.

Some early pics of our friendship above…..You will notice my hair changes a lot, the joys of having a sister as a hairdresser lol. I am not sure she will describe it as a joy tho! And below also some super special occasions where we were both bridesmaids at each others weddings.

After a few years of fun we both found ourselves settled down with babies on the way.  Oscar & Amelia arrived 10 months apart, and have been best friends from early on.

We soon found ourselves expecting babies number 2, only 4 weeks apart. During these pregnancy Lisa went on a sugar flower making course for fun, and I found myself making cakes for family members…..This particular cake I made for my twin sister for our birthday, which after hours and hours stood in my kitchen lead to the early arrival of my daughter Olivia.

(we now all share the same birthday).

Do not judge the flower work on this cake, at the time I thought it was fabulous haha

 Then came Charlie & Olivia, aren’t they cute! Quite a difference in size for only being 1 month apart. This picture always makes me laugh.

We enjoyed our maternity leave and the 6 of us had lots of fun but soon the work subject arised much to our disapointment. Lisa is a hairdresser by trade and I was working for the local newspaper. With 2 young children the prospect of going back to ‘the office’ was greeted with huge childcare bills which made it pretty pointless. So we had the great idea of starting a cake business, making 1 or 2 cakes a week of an evening while the kids slept (oh how wrong we were lol). It was just before Christmas so we got together at Lisa’s house and made some cake and cupcakes designs to advertise. I was messaging my twin at the time and sending her photos of our creations, she replied with a text that read ‘CUT ME OFF A SLICE’ and then the business was born. We were super lucky that all our friends and families were behind us and we were super busy at Christmas and made ALOT of cakes.

We created the facebook page www.facebook.com/cutmeoffaslice and posted some images and it literally ‘went crazy’ within a few weeks, and the rest is Cut Me Off A Slice history.

I’d like to end this blog with a little thank you, personally from me to Lisa, for convincing me this was a good idea! I have had the pleasure of seeing my little monkies grow and develop without the need for masses of childcare. It has at times been super stressful and not much sleep had, but the business has grown far more than we could ever have imagined. We have been super sucessful and that has all been down to hard work and dedication. The success has taken us both by surprised and probably tested us far more than we every thought, but there is no one else I could ever have done this with, putting up with my OCD tendancies and the need for plenty of spreadsheets (anyone who I used to work with will know how much I love a good spreadsheet haha) a true best friend and a friendship which has aided the success and laid the foundation for an amazing business.

xx Rach xx