Easy Sports themed birthday cake

My son wanted a "Soccer Cake" for his birthday.  He said he wanted a field with a soccer ball on it.  You can purchase "ball" cake pans at craft stores, I've never tried them and I do not own one, so here is my "thrifty" alternative.

I baked one cake mix in a normal cake pan.  I then tinted my frosting green and added a little milk to make it a thinner consistency so it would have a smooth texture and poured it on and smoothed it out.

 Then I marked where I wanted the ball to go.  Now I just needed a "ball".  I was planning on baking a separate cake mix in a small bowl to get the right size I needed but I didn't want to bake an entire other cake mix.  So I looked around my kitchen and found these:

Costco muffins! *On a side note, if you have not tried the new "Vanilla Chocolate Chunk" muffins, GO NOW!!  They are delicious and sell out at my Costco. You will thank me later, I promise!

 I cut about 1/2 a inch off the bottom of the muffin and frosted the entire thing with white frosting.  I applied the mid-field line with white frosting before I placed my ball on the cake.  Then I filled in around the edges so it was frosted to the cake surface and used a toothpick to draw on a soccer ball pattern.  I then filled in the design with a #23 star tip chocolate and vanilla stars. 

 I finished with the chocolate edging and a few goal box lines.

 Here is a cross section of the ball and cake.

The great thing about this method is you could do any type of ball.  You can do smaller balls with Hostess Snowballs.  If you wanted a football I would try to get the points on the ends with Twinkies.  With frosting, you can keep piling it on until the cake takes the shape you want. :)