Back in 2012, a brand new weekly cake decorating part work was launched in the UK.  Cake Decorating, by DeAgostini, was a big hit and shops everywhere repeatedly ran out of issues.  And I must admit, for the price, I bought several issue 1's just for the freebies!

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I fell in love with this magazine instantly and couldn't wait to subscribe for all the extra goodies!  This and Baked & Delicious were the perfect magazines to help me and my Mum along our cake business journey! (Sweet Dreams Cupcakery & Gifts)

With the exception of the icing gun (haven't dared to use this yet after seeing so many complaints that it breaks after one use), the subscription gifts were brilliant!  I absolutely love the cake caddy! (I was one of the lucky ones that received this in one piece.  Several arrived completely shattered!).  It's a good size (12in), really strong and I love the colour!

The tool box is great too.  You can't store a huge amount in it though (if you were thinking of storing the complete collection in there, think again!).  Came in useful for transporting our essential tools and cutters to college though.  I mainly use it for my essential bits and bobs to save me rummaging in my over flowing cake decorating units lol.

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Over the course of the collection, you receive lots of nozzles, cutters, stencils, tools and moulds and these are mostly good quality.  The cutters are nice and strong and the nozzles are great (they are numbered similarly to Wilton nozzles).  The tools however are unfit for use really.  They are alright for a beginner I suppose, but they all have a seam running round them, so you can't get a smooth finish with any of them.

You also receive storage for your tools and nozzles.  A good idea in principle, but as the collection got repeatedly extended, these boxes soon over flowed.  If the tool box hadn't been ridged inside, you probably could have squeezed all the tools into it.

The magazines themselves were very helpful and informative.  Although, they did get very samey after a while.  I'm pretty sure they repeated a lot of things as the series went on.  The cake designs and recipes were lovely though!  I especially love the rainbow unicorn design!  One downside though, there were far too many cookie cutters and cookie designs (my units are overflowing with them!).  The magazine was called cake decorating, not cookie decorating!

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My other gripe with the series was the repeated, unannounced extensions!  This drove me nuts as every time I thought I was about to complete my collection, it got extended again.  Much to the annoyance of all the subscribers.  Every time it was extended, there was a torrent of complaints and cancellations on their Facebook page, yet they ignored this and extended the collection about 5 times!  I wish they could have been honest from the start that there were more than 90 issues.  Or at least given us more warning when they were extending (they pretty much announced extensions on the day the collection was meant to end).  In the end, the collection went on for 210 issues.  More than double the original amount!  I really wish part work magazines would stick to their original stated print run.  All these extensions stem from pure greed.

That aside, it was a good collection.  But far too long in my opinion.  Don't get me wrong,  I love everything I received, but it does take up a huge amount of space.  Especially all the magazine binders.  They each hold 15 issues and are quite large.  Seriously DeAgostini, how big do you think our kitchens are?  I'm going to have to get a bookshelf just for all my binders!

There were also 3-4 special issues released each year.  These were £4.99 and came with 4-5 themed goodies.  I loved these (well maybe not the Halloween ones…) and my favs were definitely the Christmas ones!  Love the Christmas lights mould!

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Verdict: For £2.99 an issue, this was good little part work.  Just a shame DeAgostini ignored their subscribers and continued to extended it.  210 issues was completely unnecessary, but at least they did listen to their subscribers when it came to adding an index.  There wasn't originally going to be one, but thankfully, there was one included with the final issue.  I loved collecting this magazine, but I did get extremely fed up with all of the extensions.  I won't lie, I am relieved that my collection is finally complete!