| – a hobby that became a businessBy Enid JoaquinThomasina Benn is not your average senior citizen. Like good wine,Sean Couturier Team North America Jersey, this lady has simply mellowed with age,Tony Esposito Jersey, and gotten better at her craft, which is making and decorating cakes.Adding the finishing touches to one of her creations.Today at seventy plus, she is still very much the same enterprising and independent woman,Marian Hossa Jersey, that she was fifty years ago.Her focus these days however, is primarily on managing her internet and stationary business, and baking and icing cakes.And that is what makes Thomasina unique- her ability to manage two businesses at a time in her life, when most women her age would be relaxing.But that is nothing strange, as Thomasina has always been involved in more than one economic ventures at a time. She began by making garments for family, friends and customers. Then she started making cakes and icing them.These two activities,Kyle Brodziak Jersey, she pointed out, greatly supplemented the family’s income.“I started sewing first, though, since I was in school. I used to sew doll’s clothes for my friends, and charged them a penny apiece. So you see I started to earn from an early age.Later, after I left school, I started to sew for myself and later family and friends.”Thomasina proudly admits that she taught herself to sew, as well as bake and ice cakes. “I was living with my elder sister, who used to sew and bake and ice cakes, so I used to look at her, and I learnt just from looking.My first icing thimbles, I made them myself, using cardboard, which I cut out and shaped, because my sister never wanted me to use her thimbles.”She would practice with those cardboard thimbles, until she could afford her own. Today Thomasina has acquired all the paraphernalia that she needs. And boy, does she practice!Looking at her creations, I was simultaneously awestruck and humbled.Humbled because,Artemi Panarin Jersey, I had always felt that I was some sort on authority on creativity; but now I had to admit, this lady certainly took the cake,Clark Griswold Jersey, when it came to creativity.Thomasina seems to breathe creativity, and over the years that preoccupation has translated into dollars. She is so creative that in 2003,Antoine Roussel Jersey, her cake was adjudged the best at exhibition at Le Meridian, Pegasus in Georgetown. The exhibition was organized by an internationl organization called the International Cake Exploration Society.“My cake won, because of my creativity and my neatness, the judges said. The piece I did was of a church on the top of a hill,Doug Gilmour Jersey, and I got the inspiration for it while I was sitting at my sewing machine; so right away, I got up and started working on it.That exhibition would result in Thomasina joining the International Cake Exploration Society.“My current passion is cake decorating and the making of sugar flowers.I don’t know where this journey will take me, but at the moment, I’m trying to get as much as I can out of this, and I’m enjoying every moment of it”.Presently, apart from enjoying her lifelong hobby, which also earns her some money, Thomasina is also the proud proprietor and Manager of “Ebusiness”, an internet,Brian Elliott Jersey, stationary and document Centre at 191 Wisroc, Linden. |
