Tribute to a Nature Lover

I designed these cupcakes for a friend's memorial service. He was an outdoor enthusiast and fully embraced what California had to offer, from snowy mountain to sandy beach. 

These cupcakes took multiple steps (days) to prepare: 

1. Made miniature trees and mountains using candy melt
2. Baked the cupcakes, with 50% extras so that I can slice some off to make the headlands
3. Grounded Graham crackers to make sand.
4. Made buttercream. It will be used to secure headland to cupcake, to stick sand to the beach, to cover the headland with green meadow so that the tree and mountain can be installed, to add river and waterfall, and finally to pipe the forget-me-not flower.
5. Assembled and made them fit in the cupcake containers. Sometimes, the mountains had to be trimmed a little.