Profile – Jacques (Christine Flinn)

To see Christine's Work 

I grew up in the North East of England in a small village called New Hartley, which is approximately fourteen miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne. I started cake decoration just over twenty-four years ago. The first cake decoration course I attended was an evening class at the local High School. Even though I did not have a great deal of experience I knew the course left a lot to be desired, so I enrolled on the City and Guilds 121 course at Newcastle upon Tyne College of Arts and Technology. When I had finished the course (three years later) I knew there was still a lot to learn, but there were no courses available. A friend at college suggested I joined the Northumbria Branch of the British Sugarcraft Guild as a way of furthering my knowledge. This I did in 1984 and I am now well and truly addicted to sugarcraft.

In 1986 I married Christopher and moved to Warrington, Cheshire. I am now a member of the Preston Branch of the British Sugarcraft Guild. In 1989 I was made redundant and decided to find out if I could earn a living by creating designer cakes to order, teaching cake decoration and demonstrating sugarcraft techniques. Its hard work, but it is possible. I became an Accredited Demonstrator for the British Sugarcraft Guild in 1990 and now travel all over the UK demonstrating various aspects of sugarcraft. I started to enter competitions in 1992, as I needed a challenge. By the time I entered my second competition piece the judges already recognised my style i.e. a lot of piping and a design they had not seen before. This does cause problems as its getting very hard to think of a design /technique the judges have not seen. Sometimes the idea works and sometimes it does not and you realise why nobody else has done it before.

I was on the committee for organising the 1993 and 1997 British Sugarcraft Guild International Exhibition. In October 1994 I was approached by Merehurst Fairfax to write a book on Extension work. It was always one of my goals to write a book, so of course I said ‘yes’. If I had known then how much work is actually involved, I probably have said “thank you for asking but no thank you”. The book is in the Sugarcraft Skills Series and was published in April 1996. I have since written various sugarcraft articles for magazines.