Sweet Talking with Get Sprinkled

Carly and Tess

Sprinkles are to bakers what jewellery is to most women… an essential part of life. My Grandma Pamela used to refer to me as a magpie because I was always drawn to all things bright, sparkly and pretty. Since cake became my life an addiction to sprinkles began simultaneously (seriously you should see my sprinkle stash) and the pursuit of the greatest sprinkle brands has become an unofficial subtext to my existence.

Which brings me to the subjects of this interview – my first for Das Makes Cakes! Tess and Carly are two Aussie girls (and BFFs) who got into the business of sprinkles on account of the limited quality available locally.

Concocting beautiful blends for every season and this year debuting their Christmas advent calendar (one of which I gifted myself), the girls are less than 4 years in the making and already creating waves among the Australian baking community.

Talking Christmas traditions, time management, starting out and so much more, get ready to GET SPRINKLED (literatively speaking!)…

DMC: How did your journey with sprinkles begin?

GS: Carly owns The Sweet Spoon Yamba and started complaining about 4 years ago that all the pretty sprinkles were from overseas and too expensive. We started researching, buying sprinkles in bulk and creating our own blends and then up up and away we went! We started with a small Etsy store for a year then changed over to a website and our growth since then has been incredible!

DMC: How and where do you source your sprinkles?   GS: This is something we get asked often and whilst we would love to share we keep this one to ourselves because we have spent years trawling the internet, researching and trialling different brands / manufacturers, learning from our mistakes and creating relationships along the way. We now have a few main suppliers that we import from …but also have something exciting up our sleeve in this regard for 2021 too!  

DMC: Can you talk us through the process of mixing sprinkles to create your unique blends?  GS: If we are talking about coming up with new blends then it can either be super random, something we’ve just chucked together and works so well – OR – inspired by current themes, trends or holidays. Holiday Collections are for sure our favourite to create – Christmas and Easter are always winners! 

DMC: With two hours between you both and your two warehouses, how do you manage your time effectively so as not to burn the candles at both ends?  GS: We struggle sometimes – it is harder than living in the same town but it has taught us to be suuuuper organised and efficient. The warehouse in Carly’s home town holds all of our unmixed sprinkles, so we create new collections there and remix blends for restock there too. Once they are ready for the website Tess gets the fun task of the 2 hour drive to pick everything up and take it back to the Tweed warehouse, where we store all of the items that are for sale on the website. We pack and post orders from the Tweed warehouse and all of our photo-shoots and content creation happens here too. THE DREAM is to live in the same town one day and just have a massive warehouse that holds all the things!!! 

DMC: Your debut advent calendar has sold like hotcakes; will your families be opening a sprinkle drawer a day in the lead up to Christmas? Which drawer(s) are you most excited about opening?  GS: We are so overwhelmed by the response to our sprinkle advent calendars! We started working on them slowly from Christmas last year and were so excited when we received the large shipment of the final product. We didn’t actually gift a calendar to any of our family members HAHA We sold every single one to you guys so there were none left over by the 1st December. I would have to say that exclusive blend #11 is a fav and cutest for sure is #18! 

DMC: Also, what do you think about next Christmas bringing out a range of sprinkle theme tree ornaments?? I know I’d snap them up!  GS: Ooohhh now there’s an idea – we will totally keep that in mind 😉 But we also have another amazing Christmas product in the inspiration / design stage as we speak for 2021! It is something that we haven’t seen any other sprinkle company create and we are so excited about it!! Did I say we like to be organised? haha 

DMC: Are you girls excited for the festive season? Do you have any special traditions or things you’ll be doing specifically this year given what 2020 has dealt us all?  GS: We are both so overly festive, Christmas is for sure our favourite time of the year! Carly has been enjoying the naughty elf on the shelf tradition this month and Tess has just been struggling with being 30+ weeks pregnant in the hot Australian weather haha. We just love to spend the festive season with our family and friends – is there even anything more important?  2020 has actually been quite kind to Get Sprinkled, we have nothing to complain about in that regards thankfully! We are upgrading the Tweed Warehouse to a much bigger space so we will close the website for a couple weeks over Christmas to make the move. Then we will focus on finding a bigger space for the Yamba Warehouse in the New Year. Exciting times! 

DMC: Tess – if you were a sprinkle blend, what colours, shapes etc would we find in there and what would you be called?  GS: I feel like this could change on the daily, depending on the mood haha! But today I would be feeling all pastel tones with a few pastel metallics throughout – no shapes or big sixlets or anything. Super dainty and sweet. Name.. unsure.. This is where we would ask my sister Nicola to step in and give us a list of name ideas to choose from haha 

DMC:  Carly – same question?  GS: Bright colours and unicorn shapes because unicorns and rainbows are magical and make me happy (yeah, like a little kid 😉) and a simple name like rainbow magic! 

DMC: What is your favourite thing about working with sprinkles?  GS: It’s the creativity for us! We are both very creative gals who have had and still have full time careers that don’t fill that void at all. Also, whoever said working with your bestie was a bad idea was so wrong – it’s our favourite thing ever! 

DMC: I’m sure I’ve read on one of your Q&A’s that one of your bakes or used to bake? Does working within the baking community inspire your own baking?

GS: Carly hasn’t baked in a while because she’s been spending bulk time with her little girl, a new baby boy and sprinkle work always keeping her busy (Not so “side hustle” anymore) But she is always checking out everyones work and getting super inspired, she has a huge list of different things she wants to try but just hasn’t found the time lately! Hopes to be baking more again in 2021. Every time we create a new blend she is always thinking of cute ways to use them – obsessed with all the new and fun trends out at the moment! 

DMC: What does 2021 hold for Get Sprinkled?

GS: Oh my gosh we are excited for 2021 – It’s our ALL IN year and we have so many things up our sleeves! We are locked in for two expos so far – and thinking about our third. Expos are our absolute favourite! Love setting up the stalls and then meeting all of our beautiful customers who are friends to us now. We have 4 or 5 new products on the drawing board currently – so hopefully we can achieve them all. And we are also going to launch a new wholesale program next year that will be more inclusive with a bigger range of products available! Keep your eyes peeled guys, we have no plans on slowing down 😉

Tess and Carly