Life & Work with Nicole Lugg

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Lugg.

Hi Nicole, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Honestly, I never saw baking in my future, much less starting my own small business. I went to college in West TN and received my BA in Psychology and had found the “perfect” job just before graduation. After about a year and a half, I knew something was missing, but I just wasn’t sure what. My husband was working at a factory and not long after we found out we were pregnant with our 2nd son, he learned they would be closing sometime that next summer. We knew we didn’t want to stay in West TN, so he immediately began applying for jobs in Nashville. Finally in May of 2011, just two days after our 2nd was born, he got a call for a job offer. Soooo, we let our landlord know he finally got an offer. One week later, we packed up all our things, loaded up our 17 months old, one week old, and our two days and moved in with my in-laws in Nashville. During this time, I stayed home with the boys, we had one vehicle at the time and honestly, childcare would have costed us everything I would have made.

In 2013, I decided I wanted to go to pastry school at the Art Institutes that was here in Nashville at the time. I wanted to learn more about decorating cakes, I had been playing around at home and just loved getting into my creativity again. I knew that’s what I had been missing before, being able to be creative. I only went for two quarters before I dropped out, I joke about being a pastry school dropout all the time. To be honest so many factors played into me dropping out. One was definitely money we didn’t really have it to pay for me to continue and another was my anxiety was really starting to get bad. An instructor offered me a part-time job as a server for her catering company after I left school, that helped out for a bit, but not long. Let a classmate told me about The French Confection that was close to the downtown area. She uses to do wedding cakes but had just switched to wholesale cakes, so he thought it would be a great opportunity for me to gain some more skills. I applied and got the job pretty quick, and I LOVED it there. It was small, only three of us there, didn’t have to be around a lot of people and really enjoyed everyday. And then three months in, they ended up selling it to someone who was moving it completely out of town. So, I was on the hunt again.

Thankfully they were extremely helpful and wrote an amazing letter of recommendation to send with all my applications and I was hired on at Homestyle Bakery, in Antioch, within only a few days. I started out upfront in customer service. Then a few months later moved to icer, where I would ice all the cakes in preparation for the decorators, and eventually moved to decorator. And man was I enjoying! I learned so much during my time there and loved being able to do something different everyday, no design was ever really the same.

I started there in October 2013, which was also the same my husband started his job at the Sheriff’s Office. We both finally getting into our dream jobs we wanted and loved and could feel so much more settled. Sometime during 2015, my old instructor contacted me again. They were now exclusively working with a wedding venue and catering for them and doing wedding cakes as well and needed a new cake decorator. So, I decided to spread my wings and take that leap. Man, what an experience it was. We also did small desserts for the Lexus Lounge at Bridgestone. So on top of making wedding cakes for all their couples, I was also making those, and I would help out catering at weddings and other events as well. It was a great experience, it really was, but I was working so much and missing out on so much with my boys. My youngest was struggling in school and I wasn’t able to be there to help with homework like I needed to be. And I would work such long, late hours and be drained the next day.

October 2017, we found out we were pregnant with our daughter and we knew we needed to figure something out for me job-wise. Again, childcare would be a lot for her to go, I was felling stuck in my current position and just felt like I was stretched so thin from all angles of my life. We finally decided I’d leave my job at the end of December and I let them know so that they would have enough time for me to train someone new for them. Before leaving, I had actually started selling Pampered Chef and just thought “hey, I’ll just do that and make money that way.”

Yea that didn’t work out! It wasn’t my style at all, and I just felt so pushy with it. So here I was again, “starting over” not knowing what to do or what I wanted to do. I spend a lot of time at home, on Instagram, just scrolling through. And I would find myself watching cookie decorating videos on the search page, not gonna lie…I would be there for hours amazed at the work. One day I looked at my husband and said “Hey babe, I think I could do this and maybe make a career at it.” So, that’s what I did! Four months pregnant with our 3rd child, I decided to through caution into the wind and started something from scratch. It took a lot of patience, practice, frustration, and tears, but Valentine’s Day 2018 was my first set of orders. And been going and growing ever since.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t been easy, but that’s part of the adventure. We did have to move back in with my in-laws as I’ve worked on building this, working on adjusting to when and how to work on orders with a newborn baby once I started taking orders again and getting my name out there. This is my 3rd year now, and there are still people in my area that never knew I was here making custom cookies until recently. Figuring out my costs, how much to charge, paying myself….those things took me a while to get and understand as well.

One hard struggle for me was the pandemic. Early 2020 I was finally starting to get more orders, more people knowing about me, I had big hopes and plans for my business to grow that year, and then Covid hit. I had to cancel orders and stopped taking orders from March till about July. And even after that, it was slow getting back going. People still weren’t gathering.

But I had decided to take that time and that break to work on something new for the business that I had been thinking really hard about doing, designing and making cookie stencils for other cookiers. So I spend a lot of time drawing designs out, figuring out the right acetate to use, the right sizes, and learning how to use a Cricut machine to make them. And in June on 2020, I launched my stencils. That has still been slow getting that going, as there are lots of other well-known small cookie stencil makers out there, but I am not giving up hope and just taking as it comes, as I am still growing my cookie orders too.

Recently I have face my biggest challenge of all, June 18, 2021 I endured a freak accident while working on an order. I was simply sliding my mixer over just a little when my hand hit the cabinet, resulting in accidentally hitting the switch to my mixer, my wedding band getting caught, and I lost my finger. It was a very scary and traumatic experience and I’m still adjusting to my day to day life now. I still have much healing, physically and mentally, but I am pushing through a little each day. I start occupational therapy soon to start working on gaining range of motion back and my personal goal is to get back to my passion by October 2021. When it first happened, honestly I thought “l’ll NEVER do this again!” But, in just a few days I realized how much I already miss making and decorating cookies. It is my creative outlet and my passion.

While recovering, I have been doing some of those Paint with Diamond projects. That has helped keep me from laying in bed all day and got my creativity flowing again here recently. I’ve even created some new stencil designs and taking stencil orders again. It is keeping my busy, connected, and helping provide another reason to not give up.

I have such an amazing family, friend base, and community that has been behind me and cheering me on as well. That alone makes all the difference in the world! So before you know it, as soon as I am fully recovered, I will be back at it. Stronger and even more determined than ever!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I make custom-decorated cookies. I love making different designs for anything going on in anyone’s life, rather is helping them celebrate something big, they need a pick me up, something to get through a tough time, or even just because they are craving a sugar cookie. I want to bring something special into their life, and decorating cookies is the best way I know-how. I am really proud of just jumping all in, taking that leap, and doing this. I have really struggled with anxiety and let it hold me back so much, but I have let myself push through that and jump into building a business with really no safety net at all. To see where I was in 2018 and how my cookies looked then. To now, starting to fill up my months with orders, how much I have grown in my skill, and now having a weekly order with the local coffee shop here, Caliber Coffee Company, I couldn’t be more proud of that big leap I took.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
When I first started, I just search for a lot of blogs by other cookiers who have shared what tips and tricks they learned along their journey. And recently, I got a book called “Badass Affirmations” that I have started, it just helps me get into “let’s do this and just smash it mindset.” I also like to listen to the audiobook for “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise L. Hay, that has definitely helped my mindset and helped me with understanding myself and my anxiety. Other than that, just listening to the right music to get me in my flow is what I mostly do. Each time I decorate, it’s usually something different. One day it could be just calm, acoustic music and the next day, I could take back to some Emo hits, lol.

Pricing:

• Starts at $48 per dozen for basic design and goes up depending on details

Contact Info:

• Email: siftedheartconfections@gmail.com
• Website: www.siftedheartconfections.com
• Instagram: @siftedheartconfections
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/siftedheartconfections