Pop down to historic Trades Hall for a ten-minute shopping spree at the Broken Hill Cake Decorators and Friends stall, for unique gifts which look as if they took hours to find.
From Lilly Pilly jam to cakes, banana bread, cards, crafts and plants, it’s all home-made.
“People come in for the fresh food,” said Vicki Sladden, Publicity Officer for the Cake Decorators Association of South Australia, Northern Border.
“Home-made pasties – they just love them.”
All of the food, crafts and plants are locally produced.
“We find that the food is what attracts people to come in,“ said Vicki.
“Then they realise that there’s other things here that they can get as well.”
Judy Farquharson, is a Friend of the Cake Decorators who makes cards, dream catchers and exquisite ribbon embroidery.
“All the roses are made by hand and people buy it mainly for special occasions,” she said.
The ribbon embroidery is decorative and can add a special accent to wedding accessories, such as embroidered roses on a bag, and Judy even updated her ring cushion for her son’s wedding.
“For my wedding, it was sort of a pretty plain, little ring cushion in white satin,” she said.
“For this one, from memory now, I think I put a nice, lacey doily over a bit of it and some lace under it and then I decorated it – put the ribbon roses on top.”
“It was a keepsake and I think mainly that it was special to them because it was used in my wedding as well and it’s passed down to them.”
The association has been holding its Mother’s Day stalls and Christmas stalls in Trades Hall for the past five years. Before that, this one-stop shop was in the Town Hall Façade for six years.
The stalls are fundraisers for cake decorating workshops, one of which is planned for June or July and the other for September.
For a dramatic Mother’s Day fruitcake gift, there are decorated Mother’s Day cakes and teacup cakes.
“I cooked the fruitcake in the teacup and, once it’s cooked, I wrap the cake up and then clean the cup up,” said Vicki.
“And then, when I’m ready to decorate it, I put the cake back into it and decorate it.”
The stall is open this week from Monday to Friday between 10am and 4pm and Saturday from 9am to noon.
For information about the workshops, contact Vicki on 0439 111 356.
