IT’S HERE

Whew… the day has almost arrived friends.

As I write this post, we’re about three days out from the official launch of homemadebycelena.com. It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I just finished making my Mile High Coconut Cake for my parents’ gathering tomorrow. You all will not read this post until November 29, 2021.

I’ve been hard at work on this site and have hounded all of those close to me to keep testing it. I have about 50 “order” forms in my inbox from said tests. I wanted to see the site on every mobile device I could get my hands on - Apple, Android, iPads and tablets. I wanted to see it on different screen sizes and desktop versions. I’ve learned more code over the last three months than I ever desired to my entire life, but I believe it’s all been well worth the work.

THE PERFECT DUO

I wanted the site to be a blend of a blog and e-commerce - the perfect duo. My cake posts on social media can get quite lengthy, so I wanted to shorten them but still be able to document my thoughts about each cake for those interested, and really for my own sake too. So that’s where the blog comes in. The blog posts of the cakes - and other adventures - display more behind the scenes content and dig a bit deeper than social media posts.

The e-commerce part of the site is where the coding got pretty heavy. I wanted to be able to streamline the ordering process while still retaining the one-on-one service aspect and personal touch that you all receive when ordering cakes via text or social media.

This forced me to look outside of the box for custom solutions to add to my site — some which I coded on my own and some which are plug-ins from some amazing coders in the SquareSpace community. I think I almost “broke” my site about a hundred times, but we’re here now, so I did something right.

TECHNICALITIES

One thing that you may see that’s completely different from other traditional small business e-commerce pages is an inquiry button on each product offering. Forgive me if I get a bit technical for a moment, but I’m really proud of that little pink button.

SquareSpace essentially is built for small businesses that have products ready for purchase, whether they are physical or digital. My cakes are not ready for purchase on demand. I wanted them to be displayed and available for purchase, but I didn’t — and still don’t — have an “inventory” of cakes in the traditional sense.

I needed a blend of a physical product offering and a service product offering.

I struggled with a solution for this until I ran across SF Digital. SF Digital helped me get the idea I had in my head onto the screen and created this little “inquiry” button that I’m SO stoked about. It allows my customers - you guys - to inquire about cakes whenever its convenient for you and in a centralized location. It allows me to collect that information and then start the one-on-one communication that I mentioned above. It’s more efficient and I love it.

LET THERE BE CAKE

So, that’s a small blip into the journey of creating my own website over the last few months. I still have so many ideas stashed away in the notes section of my phone regarding how to improve functionality and things I want to add to the site, but I wanted the Launch to be sooner rather than later.

I hope you all enjoy the site as much as I do. I’m sure we’ll run into some snags and glitches, but we’ll learn and navigate together.

Sign up for the newsletter (below or on the home page), share the site on your social media pages, comment on blog posts, order a cake — just let me know you’re here!

Thanks for being a part of this journey.

- Celena