Today we’d like to introduce you to Carmen Urbano Andersen.
Hi Carmen, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
I developed my self-confidence throughout my life through service to others, since I was a child my parents instilled in me reading and self-help.
In the different stages of my life I have worked a lot on knowing myself and that has allowed me to discover my gifts and my strengths; which has allowed me to raise my self-esteem and know that I have many gifts, discover them one by one and promote their development in myself.
Working on personal self-knowledge not only allows me to identify my weaknesses, but also to develop methods to increase my gifts and talents, which has led me to gain a lot of self-confidence.
Another aspect that raises my self-esteem is always finishing projects that I start and not leaving them unfinished. Each completed project, each goal achieved allows me to celebrate myself and therefore by feeling satisfied with my achievements, my self-esteem increases.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Please tell our readers about what you do, what you feel is most exciting or special about it, as well as anything else you’d like folks to know about your brand/art/etc. If relevant, please also tell our readers about anything new (events, product/service launches, expansion, etc.
Carmen Urbano developed in the world of edible art as a result of being a lover of graphic arts and manual arts.
In approximately 2010, I ventured into the world of themed pastry and the path gradually led me to specialize in the art of cookies.
Creativity and playing with colors is what I am most passionate about, and translating it into edible art is a beautiful feeling.
My story is quite unusual but interesting and inspiring tale. Born in Tijuana, México, I grew up in a loving home where my sense of creativity and flair was nurtured. This, amongst other things helped me to find my potential.
I started out earning a degree in Graphic Arts, got a floral design diploma and along the line I opted in for a law degree for the sake of assisting in my family’s business.
I had a great and successful law career for more than 20 years in Mexico, until I got married and moved to USA.
As my life changed with my marital status, I decided to follow a different risky path in USA to fulfill my creativity longings.
So I left the law field after 19 years of successful career as an attorney and I gave it all away for a bigger dream – “Inspiration’s by Carmen Urbano” where I decided to take up a space in the world of creative arts where I am now sharing my talents and skills. It was a risky but a fun move!
Inspirations by Carmen Urbano was an inception of a great thing. The popularity of Carmen’s cookie creation led me to focus in sugar cookies, combining my love of baking with my vast creative skills.
I developed love for sugar arts and got several invitations to teach what I knew at renowned culinary schools in Tijuana and Guadalajara Mexico, those invitations changed everything for me. This became experiences that lightened up my passion for teaching.
Carmen’s “cookie creations” became a known name and brand specializing in making sugar and gingerbread cookies. I think my success is the mix of creativity and passion to make it all work out.
I have earned numerous awards, so finally I could smile and boast of the courage I had put in taking that risky but quite inspiring decision.
Several of my creative works have been featured on major cable networks in the USA, such as Food Network’s Holiday Gingerbread Showdown™ Season 2 in 2019. Since then, I have been invited to participate again in different shows of them, but I have declined several invitations as TV world is not my thing.
I have been invited to travel internationally for cookie conventions, classes, and private lessons, and as teaching and travel are my passions, I have a very tight schedule.
Me and my cookies have also been featured in several of the industry’s leading events, including CookieCon™ SoFlo, San Diego Cake Show and CookieExpo™, Julia Usher Cookie Conection among others.
May sugar art also has earned me numerous international awards. Some of my accolades are:
– Best in Show piece nominated in San Diego Cake Show, 2018.
– Grand Prize Royal Icing Award” San Diego Cake Show, 2019.
– Innovative Cookie Award” San Diego Cake Show, 2019.
– Twice Editor’s Choice” Cakes Decor 2019 and 2020.
– 1st Place People Choice Award” CookieCon™, 2020.
– 3rd Place People Choice Award” CookieCon™, 2020.
– 1st. Place Royal Icing Category” International Cake Competition 4th edition 2023.
– American Cake Awards, Cookie award finalist 2023.
– 1st Place People Choice Award, CookieCon Reno 2022.
– 1st Place People Choice Award, CookieCon Orlando 2023.
– 1st Place Mystery Shape category, CookieCon Reno 2022.
– 1st Place Mystery Shape category, CookieCon Orlando 2023.
– 1st Place Judge Panel, Anything goes category, CookieCon Orlando 2022.
I also have been featured in different International Magazines as Cake Décor Magazine, Cake Collaborator Magazine, D’licious Magazine and The Great Cake Magazine
Actually, I live in San Diego Ca. since 2014 where enjoy spending time with my husband and my family. I also enjoy traveling across the globe imparting and sharing my inspirational skills with her students.
What I love most is to inspire others to develop their own talents, convincing and nurturing them to achieve their full potential and giving them reasons to love the world of creative arts in cookie decoration. I proudly can say that I have successfully taught hundreds of satisfied students who have offered rave reviews for my designs and teaching skills.
My passion is teaching and its what I love most after creativity.
That is why I constantly push myself to create, to get out of my comfort zone and to push my creativity to the limit to be able to inspire others.
I am currently working on the launch of my website and my online store.
I have several years developing my designs for cookie cutters “Inspirations by Carmen Urbano” wich you can find at www.inspirationsbycarmenurbano.com
Also I have been working on a colorimetry project for pastry chefs that I hope to launch in 2025, so for the moment that is a secret.
Soon I will also be traveling again to teach private classes in Guadalajara, Mexico, Italy and in the USA at the CookieCon Round Rock Texas 2024 convention wich I will be teaching four cookie decorating classes.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
Both!
I love to play to my strengths and push the limit that I can develop in them, that makes me more creative and challenging my own abilities.
Challenging my strengths has helped me to be more creative, innovate and set precedents in the field of edible cookie art.
Taking advantage of my strengths has led me to innovate and not settle for what I already know. This has led me to be a pioneer of many of the techniques that are now trending in the cookie industry.
In 2019 I won the award for innovative techniques by the famous brand of confectionery products “Satin Ice” which led me to continue pushing my strengths to innovate and establish myself as a pioneer in techniques such as dimensional royal icing, mixed media cookie decorating and hand painted cookies. I am very well known in the field for my signature sugar portrait paint and my vivid eye painting.
In that same year of 2019. I made these techniques known in the USA winning the 1st Place People Choice award at CookieCon, where students and convention attendees expressed their amazement with the techniques I used at that time in my piece “My lady catrina”, a mixture of dimensional royal icing, painting and mixed media edible elements.
Investing in areas in which they are not my own strength I recommend 100% since that allows me to develop with greater security. Face challenges imposed both in the emotional-personal area and in the creative area and therefore benefit my career, my development and above all my self-esteem.
When I have invested my time in developing areas in which I am not so strong and I obtain achievements it makes me feel more satisfied with myself, and although sometimes I do not get the desired results, persevering in improving myself always strengthens me.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Love.
Love is the most powerful force in the world, when you have love it is very unlikely that you will fail at anything.
First of all, love for oneself (without falling into narcissism) helps to be coherent in your person, in what you are, in what you think, in what you act.
Love of God (or a higher power without talking about religion). When you have love for God, you have gratitude and by having gratitude the universe conspires in your favor, so that life, projects and the environment are abundant and a mentality full of love and gratitude does not fail.
And last but not least, love for others. When you have love for others you put the best of yourself for others and that leads to success, to good relationships and to being able to leave a positive mark on others.
Passion.
Cultivating and developing what you are passionate about undoubtedly leads to success, no matter how big or how small it is.
When you do something with passion you develop more in all aspects.
Passion is developed by discovering what you love, what fills you with energy, joy and courage and connecting it with your heart and taking it into action, working on what you are passionate about is not work, it is a pleasure and fun at the same time.
Do what you like is freedom and like what you do is happiness.
Perseverance.
Perseverance is discipline. It is the continuous effort to achieve what we set out to do. Without persevering action, we will never have good results.
It is important not to give up, not to overcome adversity and never to lose our will and hope.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://inspirationsbycarmenurbano.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspirations_by_carmen_urbano/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inspirations.bycarmenurbano/
