Ruins Cake

We live in an area with lots of Indian Ruins. So, for my husband's birthday, I thought it would be fun to make a cake depicting such ruins. {I know he doesn't care much about a birthday cake, but it was just an excuse for me to try something out.} And it went pretty well. As far as the picture in my head and what I was able to actually make. It's not exactly what I had in my head, but I also don't have the equipment to air-brush the frosting....

I just used a basic 9 X13 cake for this.

I cut it length-wise not quite centered and even- probably a 5 inch piece and a 4 inch piece. Then I made some little hollows.Crumb layer with the ruin "walls".

Orange layer of frosting. My technique (which may be tweaked if I try this again) was to layer (like paint faux finishing-sort of) white, then orange, then brown. I think it worked pretty well, considering tinting frosting is where I always mess up.

Here's the final. With some sage brush/cacti added. It might could have used a little more of that, but I didn't want to overdo it. And we will add candles since it's for a birthday ;)