WASHINGTON — An avocation became an addiction for Julie Cullen of Washington, and soon it may become her vocation.

Cullen decorates cakes — and not just fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants cakes with cans and tubes of icing and pre-made candy pieces. She goes all out with carefully planned, elaborate designs, and everything is handmade.

“Right now I do mostly special-order cakes for family and friends,” she said. “I’m gradually moving out to friends of family and friends.

“As I get more comfortable, I’d like to eventually have a place to make cakes and teach classes. There are no opportunities here for that, and it’s surprisingly easy for people.

“Some people think you have to be a patient person. I think I’m a very impatient person, but it’s something you can get lost in. It’s nice to forget your worries and have something to do like that.”

Cullen said she gets so involved in her cake decorating that she loses track of time. She took her first cake decorating class at a Michael’s craft store in Carbondale, Ill. Her husband, Dr. Timothy Cullen, was working on a law degree, and he suggested she try the class to occupy her time while he was studying.

“I was addicted,” she said. “I took all of Michael’s classes. I went to Wilton headquarters near Chicago and took classes there.”

She described the Wilton masters class as “cake decorating boot camp,” because the students worked from early morning until 6 or 7 p.m. every day for two weeks. Cullen said she received a certificate of completion and graduated to teaching Wilton classes in Carbondale, and later in Bloomington, Ind.

“I gave it up when gas got so high,” she said about driving to Bloomington to teach the classes.

But she didn’t give up cake decorating altogether. In fact, she continues to work on her proficiency, recently becoming a Certified Master Sugar Artist through the International Cake Exploration Societé (ICES). That was no easy feat, as guidelines are strict: The certification exam requires completion of three pieces in eight hours while judges watch, and the candidate’s work process is judged along with the completed pieces.

“You have to do three projects with different techniques: a three-tier cake, a single-tier cake and a noncake,” Cullen explained. “You have to do a certain number of techniques that add up to the right amount of points. It’s eight techniques that add up to 21 points. They want you to demonstrate that you can do the easiest to the hardest, so you have to do several, and you have to be able to complete them in an eight-hour time frame.”

There are four skill categories, and each technique within those categories is worth one, two, three or four points. She said she created piped flowers, fabric effects with rolled fondant, gum paste flowers, and Oriental string-work, among other details, to come up with her 21-point total.

“It gets more complicated than you’d expect to figure it out,” Cullen said, adding that a detailed, original plan must be submitted several months prior to the exam date.

She said there are different tools for each technique. For instance, a bag with metal tip is used for piping, and flowers are hand-formed on wires. Though there are Cricut cutters that can be used for some techniques, one goal of ICES is to keep the older techniques alive so they’re not lost. People taking the certification exam have to provide their own tools.

The Sugar Artist Certification Exam is offered annually at the ICES conference, and people wanting to take it usually sign up a year in advance so they have time to prepare, according to Cullen. She said people of all ages and both genders take the exam. There were 21 people taking the exam when Cullen did this year at the 36th annual convention.

Each person can bring an assistant to help with preparatory tasks, and Cullen’s husband served as hers. She said they watch The Food Channel, so he understands what goes on and can identify the tools she uses. Plus, they practiced in the months leading up to the exam.

“He’s been really supportive,” Cullen said. “He has a shirt with a cake on it that says ‘I’m the husband. I just carry the cakes.’ But he does more than that.”

Cullen completed the certification exam with 4 minutes to spare on Aug. 3 in Charlotte, N.C., and was delighted to learn a few days later that she had achieved the status of Certified Master Sugar Artist.

According to the test guide, judges look for skill, technique mastery, neatness, cleanliness and basic food safety. They score each candidate on three categories: skill, artistry and work process. Candidates demonstrating a significant degree of talent and accumulating more than 56 total points are named Certified Sugar Artist (CSA); those with a total score higher than 64 and demonstrating exceptional skill, using more difficult versions of their chosen techniques, earn the more elite status of Certified Master Sugar Artist (CMSA). Since ICES established the exam in 2008, numerous individuals have taken it, with 11 becoming CSAs and 23 becoming CMSAs.

Following the exam, Cullen was interviewed for American Cake Decorating magazine about test day. She told the interviewer: “The certification exam is intense. The test administrator sends out frequent emails with suggestions and recommendations, especially the month prior, which are very helpful. Still, time passes amazingly fast. The only time I felt especially stressed was toward the end, when it hits that despite all the practice, time is crushingly tight. If you don’t get all three of your pieces on the judging table (just like the Food Network Challenges) — then all of your work is wasted. Although in my last practice or two I had finished with time to spare, I had barely four minutes left when I placed my last piece on the front table.”

Cullen has been an ICES member for three years and gets great enjoyment from it. She said cake decorators bring examples of their work from as far away as Africa and South America to display at the conferences, and there are as many as 400 to 600 cakes to see. Food program celebrities mingle, classes are available, products are displayed, and demonstrations take place throughout the conferences.

“There are other conferences, but this one is for all sugar arts,” she said.

“It’s got to be the friendliest group of people I’ve been around. You’d think they’d be competitive, but they get excited and share.

“Some have businesses, for some it’s a hobby. The different perspectives make it fun.”

Originally from Kansas, Cullen moved to Washington after meeting her husband in college and getting married. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, which she taught while her husband finished med school. She currently works part time for her brother-in-law, Dr. Stephen Cullen, and practices her sugar artistry.