What a great spring to live in Minnesota. Beautiful weather. The grass is getting that deep dark hue, unless you have a dog… then there’s those spots, yellow dotting across the yard, reminding you that winter and snow was just in the recent past. And if you have a family like mine, multiply those spots by two. We love our dogs, but we also love our yard… so… yeah… awkward trails of silence.

But, fear not! My fiancé (can a girl get a high-five over here, I just said “my fiancé”) is in the agriculture business and just brought some fertilizer home. Buh-bye yellow tinged grass, you will no longer be a reminder that our whole yard is really just an entire bathroom for our doggies.

With this gorgeous weather,  the yard work has commenced over here. Ya know, workin’ on that curb appeal. Except, our road is that of dirt, it lacks the whole curb part.

In our yard, we have a large rock pile. This said rock pile is far from where the rocks belong. The rock pile is at point A, but the rocks need to be picked one by one, tossed into a wheelbarrow, then rolled to points B and C. B being a rock wall and C being a garden border. If only it were as simple as typing it out. Boom. Done. But, nope… there’s scrapes, bruises, sweat, blood, yelling at kids because they think a not so sturdy rock is a fun toy to try and balance on, with other sharp rocks to catch a fall. Boys.

However, do you know what isn’t so back breaking and wound creating? Dying fondant with earth tone dyes and creating a marbled stone look for a cake! Actually, I take the wound part back, I can’t count how many times I’ve hurt myself whilst cake making… pinching my finger under my stand mixer, countless cake pan burns, and the occasional self knife stabbing- just don’t ask, okay?

Anyway, what I’m getting at, I have a lot more control of my “rock” fondant than I do over the real deal. And just as I am proud of a finished landscaping project, I am also extremely proud of my latest cake: the stone silo from Disney Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur. I absolutely love how this cake turned out!

I used a cobblestone impression mat to achieve the look of this stone silo! The silo is bordered with fondant blades of grass, shaved chocolate “sticks” and candy coated chocolate rocks!

Spot and Arlo are both hand painted and made out of gumpaste.

Spot sports a leaf in his messy, crazy hair, accompanied by a vine wrapped 4 for the birthday boy, Gage!

Arlo has his different hues of green luster dust to show off that dino skin. 😉

It was a lot of fun to make the stone silo come to life through this cake!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. And as always, I was happy I wasn’t a witness to the cutting of this cake! 😉