Win a cake topper or necklace from Miss Cake:

We're giving you a chance to win your very own piece of Miss Cake. To enter, have a go at designing your own cake topper or necklace and post a photo, drawing or sketch below. Sarah will pick her favourite and make your idea in to a reality.

Contest closes on February 20th.

Congratulations to davisbabe, who won the cake topper and Pam, who won the necklace.

Sarah Broadhurs's alter ego in the business world is Miss Cake. After briefly making cakes for a living, hence ‘Miss Cake’ Sarah made the "random and expensive decision to buy a laser cutting machine" who goes by the name of Larry the laser cutter; now ‘Miss Cake’ hosts a whole range of laser cut products from cake toppers to jewellery. We caught up with her to chat about all things business and crafty.

Miss Cake was set up 3 years ago after what Sarah describes as a "Thrisis- a mid life crisis at 30. After getting a bit fed up in my social work job, I came up with the idea to make cakes for a living. The name choice took a while but I realised the website was available and went for it!" The switch from baking to laser cutting came as Sarah describes she "soon realised the effort:profit ratio was rather skewed not in my favour- late nights slaving over sugarcraft flowers was not really my cup of tea! Buying a laser cutting machine meant I could continue on my newly rediscovered creative journey!"

"Now I have my own business I don’t think that I would want to go back to the other side and be employed again; I have had a vague dream to own a tea shop but I didn’t really think about starting a business until I had been with my partner Craig for a while. Craig runs a successful pest control and mail order business so we now run Miss Cake alongside the pest control which is a rather random combination!"

I ask Sarah about her dream client to design for and she chooses the "ultimate domestic goddess, Nigella Lawson who she would design a cake topper for; I could so see one of my cake toppers in one of her cakes and gracing the pages of her cookbook. The dream for Miss Cake is to carry on doing what I love and continue increasing sales and recognition. I would love to go into collaboration with other creative types on a product idea and expand Miss Cake to more than cake toppers by thinking of an amazing new concept- that hasn’t come to me yet though!"

One thing that is impressive about the Miss Cake website is how professionally the products are photographed; "I get inspiration for good product photography from the Etsy front page; I love the white background/bright colours look. The best area in my house is the dressing table in the attic! Every so often on a sunny day, I clear everything off and have a little session with a fake cake and toppers. Daylight gives better lighting so I take my jewellery photography in the garden. (Miss Cake also sells a whole range of jewellery) I only have a digital camera and use Picasa (which you can download for free) so I am no expert but I find that finding a set up that works for you and sticking to it is probably my best tip; then your photos will look uniform."

The Miss Cake website also showcases the Brighton collection with products such as prints: "Brighton is one of my favourite places- I have spent most of my life living near or in Brighton. I love the creativeness of it, the shops, the nightlife and the people. More recently I have discovered an amazing craft scene- there are tons of craft fairs full of interesting and friendly people." Now I immediately want to visit Brighton’s craft scene!

Cliché it may be but I have to ask what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given: Sarah says the advice was from her partner Craig- "to be careful what you spend your money on; so far, I have spent practically nothing on my website or advertising and built my business up by word of mouth. Also I had to forget about working 9-5 which is what I was used to- you need to be prepared to work long hours for nothing to begin with so make sure that your are financially stable and have the determination to cope with this. Also social networks are your new friends!"

Find out more about Sarah and her work, or pick up a personalized cake topper for yourself at MissCake.co.uk  »