The case of the wonky peacock

The brief was she loves the colours of the peacock.
Well that's something to start with ( I usually get a cake and pretty or something different but I'm not sure what) so this is a refreshing change.
I started by making the cake an 8" round sponge and then I made the body for the peacock a sort if oval shape with navy blue modelling paste with an emu shaped neck which I had to support with spaghetti as it was so fine and delicate. I left that to set while I iced the sponge with white icing and covered the cake drum with teal and turquoise marbled sugar paste.
The next job was to start adding the peacock feathers to the body and add the eyes to the feathers, I used a lot of artistic license here to achieve the look I wanted then added the birds crest. The whole bird was lightly dusted with jade green edible lustre and a touch of aubergine dust to achieve the correct colour, then added black to the neck and face adding white highlights around his eyes. I was really pleased with the overall colouring .
I added the age to the cake on peacock eyes and used the marbled sugar paste to add a ribbon effect around the base of the cake.

Sugar Bees Essex and the headache!

Have you ever stopped to think why are you doing something? Why make your life so much more complicated when things are just starting to settle down and go right!
Well I've been having the thought recently, my cake decorating business has been pootling along nicely everything no complaints there the usual. Mix of straight forward and novelty cakes but nothing that got me really excited and tested my metal on a daily basis.
TEACH! ME? Never, but then I thought why not I've been in the bakery business for over 20 years now. With my own business for 8 years , I've created hundreds of cakes for paying customers, so why shouldn't I try to show people the basics of the business?
And that's how it began, the headache!!!!
People not turning up for classes, so much time on FB organising classes, practicing, weighing out, measuring, timing classes , figuring out by trial and error what will work, am I asking too much of everyone?
The results have been mainly excellent, people can actually recreate the decorations that I'm teaching them, and everyone seems happy with the results, and me well I'm still busing with the results !!!! Thank you