flora – Co-Geeking

Fancy Nature-Inspired Cakes

November 27, 2025October 5, 2025Eppu2 Comments

I find that this fall I need to go all out on coziness to try and offset some of the horrible in the world. My comfort browsing therefore includes several of the core aesthetics: cozycore, naturecore, forestcore, summercore, hobbitcore, cottagecore, and more.

In addition to comfy things, now and then you find something simply stupendous. For instance, Reddit user Green-Cockroach-8448 makes just incredible, absolutely jaw-dropping cakes. Here are two examples that I adore:

The incredible thing is that she bakes as a hobby, not professionally. These results definitely do put some professional efforts to shame, they’re so astounding. My gast is thoroughly flabbered.

With these mouth-watering treats we wish a Happy Thanksgiving to our readers in the U.S.!

Images by Green-Cockroach-8448 on Reddit: Blue cake. White cake.

In Making Stuff we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

Visual Inspiration: Now I See from Where Ents Might Have Come

February 13, 2019October 15, 2022Eppu

As a kid, I spent time playing in the small wooded areas nearby and imagined all sorts of critters living there. I know I did, but at some point I lost the ability (or willingness, or perhaps leisure? I remember an increase in homework around the same time). By the time I read of the enormous woodlands in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, I remember having trouble imagining the really large trees of Lothlórien or Mirkwood, or how Ents might be mistaken for trees.

You see, I grew up two hours south of the Arctic Circle. We have woods up there, of course, thanks to the Gulf stream. The trees may not necessarily grow very big, however—although there are exceptions—and the ones that do grow tall tend to be relatively thin and arrow-straight instead of bulky and gnarly. (Two examples here and here. Both are further south than where I grew up, but nevertheless very similar.)

So, even I can easily imagine how a forest might invoke stories of elves, trolls, ents, and other creatures on the basis of photos of Wistman’s Wood in Dartmoor, Devon, England.

Isn’t it breathtaking? It’s like there are Ents about to walk out from behind a tree at any moment!

Images: Andy Walker (CC BY-ND 2.0) via Flicker. Clifton Beard (CC BY-NC 2.0) via Flickr. Natural England/Peter Wakely (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr.

The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?

Visual Inspiration: Boats Made of Giant Pumpkins

November 5, 2018November 4, 2018Eppu

Since 1991, in Gentilly, Quebec, the residents have held an annual giant pumpkin competition—and boat race!—called Potirothon. The name is a portmanteau of potiron and marathon.

After weighing the entrants, some of the giant pumpkins are carved into 1-seater canoes and raced on the Bécancour River.

The Potirothon race is so awesome! Although pumpkins aren’t new to me anymore, the giant variety is. This is also the first I hear of carving the giant kind. My mind immediately went to an alternate Shire, or maybe another secondary world where humanoids of a smaller stature might want to use giant hollowed-out gourds / fruit / plants as transport. Or not even necessarily humanoids; intelligent beings of any shape or size.

Found via Good Stuff Happened Today at Tumblr.

Image via kanbukai at Tumblr.

P.S. Scandinavia and the World made a comic about Potirothon!

The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?