Creating personalized cake toppers with Cricut is a fun and easy craft to get started with your machine. Cake toppers can be the difference from a boring store bought cake vs the perfect decoration to complete your creative vision for a themed party.
I interviewed my crafty friend Ashleigh from @ashleighelliottdesigns to learn more about Cricut cake topper materials, tips and tricks.
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Table of Contents
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12 Tips to Make Cake Toppers with Cricut
What machine do I need to create cake toppers with Cricut?
Any Cricut machine that can cut cardstock can be used to make cake toppers. The Cricut Joy will be more challenging due to the cut size limitation of 4.5 inches wide. Both the Cricut Explore Air 2 and the Cricut Maker models have a max cut size of 11.5 by 11.5 inches. And the Cricut Explore Air 3 and Maker 3 can cut 11.7 inches by 12 feet with smart materials like smart Paper Sticker Cardstock.
What kind of paper works best for cake toppers?
Cardstock. Choosing the right paper makes a difference in the quality of the personalized cake topper. The brand and thickness (aka weight) depends on the theme and design. Thicker cardstock helps make cake toppers made with Cricut sturdy, however, small details are easier to cut with thinner paper. Cake topper creator, Ashleigh uses a variety of cardstock ranging from 110lb (300 gsm) to 65lb (180 gsm) and she picks up whatever is available at her local craft store or on Amazon.
My personal favorite is to use cardstock without a white core and the color all the way through. Using solid core paper is important with rolled paper flowers because the white becomes visible along the edges. The recollections cardstock is a great quality solid color cardstock.
What is the best stick used to make cake toppers with Cricut?
Lollipop/Cake Pop sticks are Ashleigh’s favorite. She uses 8 in (20 cm) white lollipop sticks for all her cake toppers. This length works well for tall multi-layered cakes. Cakes with less layers or sheet cakes may need shorter sticks. Luckily, lollipop sticks can be trimmed easily with scissors.
Another option for cake topper sticks are acrylic lollipop sticks. The acrylic sticks are a little more expensive and crystal clear. These would also work well to make matching drink stirs too.
What is the best glue and adhesive to use to make cake toppers with Cricut?
Glue with a precision tip and double sided adhesive foam. Use adhesive foam in between layers to create dimension for your cake topper. Foam adhesive can be cut down easily with scissors to fit very small areas.
Another option is a good quality paper glue with a precision tip. A precision tip glue is helpful for tiny pieces or for areas that looks best flat. A good quality paper glue will dry clear, not wrinkle your paper and spreads easily.
Lastly, to secure the stick to the paper cake topper, use hot glue. A glue gun with a small tip is helpful to control the amount of glue and not flood your DIY cake topper with gobs of glue.
What are the best tools used to create cake toppers with Cricut?
Beyond a Cricut machine, there are other tools that make a big difference with paper crafts in general: brayer and Cricut basic tools with reverse tweezers and spatula.
Reverse tweezers are designed with a reverse grip feature allowing them to grab material and stay secure without constant pressure applied. Reverse tweezers act as like an extension of your fingers and make placing small paper cuts more precise. And the spatula is helpful to peel off cardstock from the mat.
For a long time I was not convinced a brayer was necessary, and then I got one. A brayer makes a noticeable difference for how well your cardstock sticks to the Cricut mats, which then leads to better cuts especially for the most difficult little pieces and the most textured glitter cardstock.
What special materials are used to create glitter shaker cake toppers with Cricut?
Adhesive foam sheets, acetate and chunky glitter. I create glitter shakers the easy way using adhesive foam sheets and the offset feature in Cricut Design Space. Check out this post about how to make custom shape shakers. The offset feature is now available on both the desktop and mobile app version of Cricut Design Space.
What is the best size to make cake toppers with Cricut?
The size of the cake topper depends on the size of the cake. Cake Topper creator, Ashleigh sizes all her Cricut cake toppers at 6 inches in width because a lot of the local cake makers use 6-8 inch cakes, allowing the cake topper fit well without being over powering.
If you are making a Cricut cake topper for cupcakes, it may be necessary to size down the design to around 3 or 4 inches and reduce the length of the cake topper stick.
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What are the best fonts to use for cake toppers?
Thick fonts. The best fonts for making cake toppers with Cricut have thick letters with clean edges for easy cutting. Thin fonts are more likely to rip and make the overall cake topper more flimsy. Cake topper creator Ashleigh uses her favorite font ‘Hello Valentica’ for her Cricut cake toppers.
Script fonts are helpful for making cake toppers with Cricut because the letters can be connected together within Cricut Design Space using the Weld tool. Welding the letters together keeps the whole word connected during cutting and makes for easy placement on the cake topper design instead of placing each letter separately for non-connected fonts.
Quick list of fonts for cake toppers:
What is the secret to cutting glitter cardstock to make cake toppers with Cricut?
A lightly used StrongGrip Mat. Cut glitter cardstock using material settings of glitter cardstock with more pressure and the fine point blade (which is the blade included with all Cricut machines). Place the glitter cardstock on a lightly used StrongGrip mat to ensure a good grip.
Alternatively, use a green StandardGrip mat and tape down all the edges with painters tape.
Which is the best Cricut mat to make personalized cake toppers?
Blue LightGrip Mat: light/thin cardstock, printer paper, construction paper
Green StandardGrip Mat: medium cardstock, textured paper, patterned paper
Purple StrongGrip Mat: Thick cardstock, Glitter cardstock
What is the best way to ship cake toppers to customers?
Cake topper creator, Ashleigh ships out her custom cake toppers by backing them onto study board and securing with bubble wrap. Then the package gets added to a hard backed large envelope for the best protection.
I tape my cake toppers to a backing board using washi tape. Then I add the board with cake topper to clear sleeve storage bags.
Should Cricut cake toppers be double sided?
Optional. Ashleigh only adds a back to her cake toppers when requested by the customer.
The advantage of making a cake topper double sided is covering the stick/glue and having a nice finish on the back. The disadvantage is using more materials when the back of the cake topper may not be seen at all.
Do you have any other questions about how to make cake toppers with Cricut?
I hope this article answers all your questions but if not, leave a comment and I will do my best to find you and answer.
12 Comments
This tutorial was extremely helpful! Which glue would be the safest for cake toppers and which glue do you use? Thanks.
Hi Cynthia, I use bearly Art glue or beacon 3-in-1 glue.
What do you use to adhere the lollipop sticks or skewers to the back of or front( for layered ones ) of glitter cardstock . I am struggling to find a glue for the glitter cardstock . Thanks
Hmmm… good question. If hot glue isn’t work well for you, I would try beacon 3-in-1 glue. It takes a little longer to set but works really well.
Do you have any tutorials for making a retirement centerpiece pick to go inside of a vase?
Im new to Cricut and a little lost with this.
Hi Lisa. I don’t have a specific tutorial about retirement but you could create your own following this tutorial: https://www.craftaracreates.com/easy-birthday-cake-decorations-with-cricut/
Love all this information….I am looking for cake topper ideas for a 50th wedding anniversary cupcakes….any ideas you can direct me to?
Glad this information helped. You can check out this post and video on how I designed a number cake topper in Cricut Design Space: https://www.craftaracreates.com/birthday-cupcake-topper-with-cricut/
Thank you for the helpful tips. I’m wanting to make cake toppers so this info was great. My question is where do designers find all their designs? I see so many licensed designs and wonder how they convert them to a cake topper?
Hi Jill. That is a really good question. Determining or converting a design to be a papercraft can be tricky. I hope to have a free workshop out in the near future to share how to design easy cake toppers.
This was SUPER helpful!! I am obsessed with fonts & waste too much time choosing them for my projects so having a list of fonts was perfect for me. I already had one of those ☺️ & grabbed the others from Creative Fabrica. I’m ready to make some cake toppers now!! 🎂
So glad this information is helpful for you! Yay for making fun cake toppers with Cricut!