Gold Mine 50th Birthday Cake Way pic heavy!

[KLKing]

Since I'm turning 50, I wanted to do something representing my "Golden Jubilee Year". Let me say that I did not use candles, or put any writing on it, because it would be shared with other Sept. Birthdays at our congregation's lunch.
I purchased just under  $10.00 worth of items, but ended up needing to buy extra cake mixes. So some items on reciept were unused. Here's the list of what was actually used, and what came from the house.
Dollar Store:1 brownie mix,1 pk trail mix, 1 box caramel corn, 1 necco wafers,($.59.)
1 pk. chocolate wafer cookies 1 pkg. small pretzels, 1 pkg. black licorice
Since the dollar store was out of cake mixes, we bought 3 at .99 from the grocery store. The items originally purchased and not used are: 1pk. Lg. pretzels, 1 bag animal cookies, 1 roll gold wrapping paper
The items from the house were: 3 cake mixes(total 6+1 brownie box),cakeboards, gold fabric,elastic,thread, fabric scraps,glass beads, pebbles, sugar, shortening, butter, food coloring, eggs,paint, glue , coconut, led light.
My mom and I did this together. I made all the miniature decorations. She baked and assembled the cakes. This was entirely my design. I chose all the placement details, as she made the icing, and shaped the mountain.
This cake has: 3 inchie shacks, dynamite, bags of gold, 2 camp fires, 3 pup tents, 7 gold mining rail cars, a 3-pc. sluice box, a pile of gold, a waterfall and lake, 30 trees, shovels and pick axes, a lighted tunnel. And ladders made of pretzels. It is Chocolate with Almond flavored butter frosting. I will put extra pics on my members gallery, since this may not accept very many here. Thanks for looking!
Hope you look at all the other pics I loaded up!

[bewtchngeyez]

That is so cute and fun. You must have had a lot of fun putting that together, I know I would.

[sweets4ever]

Oh my goodness!!  Your attention to detail is amazing.   I adore the little rail cars and dynamite sticks.

[lovesclutter]

Man, I so want to eat that. Great job K. I've already started on the other down side of that mountain. LOL

[KLKing]

And We did eat it today! We fed between 75 and 100 people, and had lot's left over to give away! I saved the top layer of the mountain, and all the props . Thanks, Lovesclutter for the inchie house pattern! It really came in handy. That Almond flavored icing was the bomb! One guy said he ate six pieces. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone's reaction to it, even if I don't win this challenge, It was this challenge that kicked it off!
Thanks Craftster! K

[psychonmemphis]

wow very nice job, i wish you had a pic for size reference though but very nice job! i love it!

[retromac]

So much fun! Good to see another 50ish craftster is online (I made the owl clock).

[KLKing]

Thanks Psychonmemphis! For size reference, here's some measurements....The bottom board the cake is sitting on is 22" in diameter. The cake started with a 14" round, 2'5" deep. The next layer was a 12" round, then a 10" fluted pan, topped with a mound of small brownie squares. The height was about 12" all together.The tunnel was a 5" deep piece of a 4"diameter  cardboard tube, with a slice cut out to have a flat ,open side. The small pretzels the trees were made out of were 3" long. Plus, to get shaping, pieces of cake were carved up and "Pasted" into place, widening the bottom at some points. wafer cookies are 1"x 3", and it took one cookie to make each box car, with the layers sliced apart with the craft knife to get the thin pieces. I used Necco wafers for the wheels. The edible items were glued together with Royal Icing, which hardens. I used Black licorice cut in 4 strips each, for train tracks, with a full width piece for the car links. The tents and campfires were made of non-edibles, and I saved some of the pieces. The inchie houses were clipped on the roof edges, and weathered. they were done with markers, then water-colors, and stuck to plastic laminating film, sticky-side up, to keep the icing sanitary.The little LED light is re-usable, up to 100 hrs. The inchie house on top of the mountain covered the light unit. I think I could make miniatures "all day long!"

[psychonmemphis]

well you have my vote!

[Kajikit]

It's adorable! Happy birthday!