Inspirational Women's Week: Melody from My Sweet and Saucy

Isn't this week shaping up to be amazing! Our next guest is a woman who has achieved so much success throughout the last couple of years! Please welcome the amazingly talented, Melody from My Sweet and Saucy! This is a hard post to write for us because we literally don't know where to begin! Melody is truly an inspiration for so many reasons! She actually went to school to be a teacher and knew in her heart that her passion was for baking and entertaining. So she took the leap of faith, that many of us are terrified to take, she followed her heart and went to the California School of Culinary Arts and graduated from the Le Cordon Bleu program as a pastry chef. (I have to admit this is very close to my heart, because that is where I graduated from as well, but the Chicagoland branch of Le Cordon Bleu). Melody took another leap of faith after she began working at Zov's Bakery and Bistro, she left and went out on her own! She literally worked out of a little apartment kitchen and rented space at a commercial bakery for larger scale jobs. She credits her husband for teaching her the importance of blogging and keeping a great website to grow her business. After 2.5 years of working out of her apartment, she partnered with her parents and opened what is now the highly successful, My Sweet and Saucy! Melody, is so sweet, passionate about what she does and such an inspiration for those who think they can not make their dreams a reality! She is faithful and feels truly blessed by God to be where she is today! Everything that Melody does is inventive, creative, exciting and down right beautiful! She is constantly growing and evolving...we don't know how she does it but everything she comes out with is more beautiful than the last! Oh and by the way, Melody just finished taping TLC's new summer time cake show, Fabulous Cakes!!! How exciting is that! Even though we don't personally know Melody we are truly so proud of her! We can not thank you enough Melody for sharing with us today. You are truly an inspiration and we know that the future holds many treasures for you, that you are so deserving of! Here are a few photos we could not resist sharing with you!

Icing Designs: Who are some of the people that inspired you as you were getting your start?

Melody: I would say that my Dad & Mom inspired me business wise in a lot of ways. They have had their own business for over 25 years and they have always encouraged me to follow my dreams & passions. As far as the pastry side of business I would say that I am constantly inspired by Ron Ben Israel, April Reed, The Cake Girls, & Kate Sullivan. All of their work is so modern, clean, and interesting!

Icing Designs: Where do you draw inspiration from now?

Melody: I constantly draw inspiration from wedding and design blogs! They always have such gorgeous prints, florals, jewelry, invitations etc. Some of my main inspiration definitely comes from the ladies that I work with on a daily basis in the wedding industry! They are all so talented and I love being able to bounce ideas off of them and see what their thoughts & opinions are.

Icing Designs: What is one of the most inspirational projects that you have worked on?

Melody: One wedding that I did recently with Courtney from Joyful Weddings and Events and Carissa from JL Designs was a perfect combination of all of us getting inspired together and really playing off of each other. Carissa always blows me away with her florals & Courtney's attention to detail is amazing! It was a spanish style wedding at Rancho Las Lomas & the bride & groom loved the idea of one large cake and a lot of smaller side cakes. We took her invitation design, made custom flag sugar molds for the main design of the cake, & then accented it with a peony sugar flower. The small rustic style cakes fit the look perfectly with Carissa's stunning peonies & Courtney made the most adorable little signs for each cake!

Icing Designs: How would you like to inspire others?

Melody: I would love to inspire other people to follow their passions and dreams! I think that everyone can succeed in one way or another if they give it 100% and are really doing what they love. No matter the economy or your formal training, if you love something and give it your all then it will be very rewarding and the right choice in the end!

How can you not adore this woman! When we first started following Melody a while back, Melody posted about a proposal that took place in her shop! It was so sweet and romantic! It just really showed Melody's kind heart that she took the time to coordinate something like that amongst her busy schedule!

We also just love the way Melody sets up her shop window as the seasons change! We can imagine the excitment as customers walk by and see the lovely pastries and cakes set a top of beautiful pedestals and cake plates! We would truly be like kids in a candy store being able to sit and admire all of her lovely creations!

We adore Melody so much when we created our Cupcake Couture line, we even created a card inspired by a My Sweet and Saucy cake!