Homestead Craft - Woodsy Fake Cake

This fake cake can be easily made with natural things from the outdoors.

It is covered in bark from the white ash tree, and topped with pine cones. All it needs is a miniature shovel for the slice. The white ash tree bark is very thin, like paper, and peels off easily.

It can be made with silk flowers if preferred. Ingredients needed are: three small stryrofoam rounds (from the dollar store), tree bark, a blank side of a piece of paper, a pen, a serated spatula or a knife with a serated edge,  tacky glue or fabritack, or hot glue. Thin white glue does not dry as fast, but might work.

Trace around the styrofoam round with the pen. If you do not want to buy styrofoam, trying using a short, round box with a lid, and make the cake completely round, with no slice.

Cut out the circle you just traced, and fold it in half, then, in half again. Open it up and cut out one of the fourth sections.

Lay the larger section on top of the rounds, and trace the "V" shape with a pen, digging into the styrofoam a little to make a line to follow.

With the serated edged spatula or knife, slice out the section on each round. Drop big glops of glue all over the inside layers. Glue all three layers of foam together with fabritack or tacky glue. Hot glue works too. This is not a craft for children.

Then, slice off a little less than half of the small sections, as you see here. Glue all three layers together.

With ordinary scissors, or childrens scissors, cut the bark sheets to match the size of the cake, and start gluing them on. White ash has a lot of curly pieces, and you can use them to patch and embellish the cake. Squeeze big drops of glue on to the stryrofoam and then press the bark on it. Cover any edges that have styrofoam still peeking through, with extra curls of white ash bark.

Use the under side of the bark for the inside of the cake, as you see here. The inside is usually a dark brown, while the outside is white.

Place white bark on the ends and widesst side of the slice. Glue the dark side of the bark on to the slice.

In place of pine cones for the top, use whole cinnamon sticks.  Scent the cake with any choice of scented oil.

A friend of mine has decorated her home in a north woods theme. Someone gave her one of these and she has it on her entry table by the front door, where anyone who walks in can get a whiff of the nice aroma. The scent can be refreshed by adding more scented oil or scented spray.  This is a good outdoor craft because you can just let the scraps fall to the ground. It takes about an hour to complete.

Take a look at this real cake, made to look like a birch bark cake.  For more craft cakes, type in "chennille cakes" or "felt cakes" and see the hundreds of creative, hand made things people are doing.

There used to be some McCall's craft books that showed how to make potpourri cakes. The scented fake cakes are very popular now, being seen in show homes and other places where fake food is used. The scent is wonderful for the home.

Things like leaves, cedar branches, or pine cones, could be used in lieu of bark. There might also be some artificial materials such as scrapbook papers, and woodsy decorations, that look just like this.

You may also be interested in this floral scented fake cake.