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I am constantly amazed by the possibilities and potential of my Cricut Explore Air 2. While perusing some Facebook groups that I joined for advice and inspiration, I came across the notion of how to make a cake topper.

You can use the Cricut to cut out a message, glue it to some skewers and then insert it into the cake. I thought to myself, what a brilliant idea. Quite often the cakes that my children like are decorated on top and so it does not leave much room for a birthday message. This makes it personalized and does not disturb the cake decorating.

This was the perfect project for my son’s birthday party that was held a couple of weeks ago. I had previously done a post on cutting vinyl with my Cricut to make the party favours. They turned out so nicely. It was a really easy vinyl project to do. You can read about that here. Now it was time to figure out how to make a cake topper.

Here are the steps and some tips on how to make a cake topper using your Cricut.

Pick a “Fat” Font.

One of the key things in figuring out how to make a cake topper was picking the right font. The key is to pick a “fat” font. Because you want the words to overlap, you need a “fat” font. I also wanted something scripty. My first test run did not work out well as the script part contained too many thin lines and it was too delicate and so it came apart and ripped easily. I tried so many fonts.

To help me find a font, I used the website wordmark.it to help me. I love this website. You simply type in what you want to say (in my case, Happy Birthday) and then it shows you what it looks like in all the fonts that you currently have installed on your computer. It makes it so much easier to see. I was able to narrow it down to a few fonts, but my choices were still too delicate.

I saw a lovely cake topper made for a Christening on one of my Cricut Facebook groups and asked the maker what font it was – it was script-like, but not overly feminine. The font was called “Atlantis Heart Free” and is available for free on dafont.com. Another good, “fat” and free font is “Lavenderia”. Of course, there are many other fonts out there that work, but these are the ones that I used.

I downloaded these fonts right away and got to work. I designed my cake topper in Photoshop as that is what I am more familiar and comfortable with, but you could also do this in Cricut’s design software, Design Space. What’s nice is that you can personalize the topper – you can add details like a name and make it say anything you want. In Design Space, you can also make your letters thicker by making them bold. You can also “unlock” the text and drag it wider. This will result in stretching the text and thickening it up a bit.

Block letters, especially capital letters work quite well when making cake toppers – especially if you skew each letter. It makes a fun-looking cake topper.

Make Sure Everything is Connected and Joined.

Not only do you need a “fat” font, but the letters also need to be joined (which is why I was looking at script-type fonts) or overlapping. Everything must be connected so that the topper is one single piece. Make sure that it overlaps in a variety of places, all the way across, as well as up and down.

A challenge I had with fonts was that I found that the first letter (when it is capitalized), is often not attached to the rest of the word. However, I needed it to be. So what I ended up doing was writing text without the first letter – so for instance, instead of “Happy” and “Birthday”, I started out with “appy” and “irthday”. I added the first letters after the fact, in a separate text file and was able to move them so that they overlapped with the rest of the word.

The trickiest part for me was the dot on the letter “i”. I had to make sure it was connected to something. You can play with the angle of words so that there is some overlapping. That said, I’ve seen a couple that just left the dot out completely and still looked fine.

So I made a couple of general ones that I am sharing with you. I actually ended up making a couple of cake toppers using a couple of different fonts. We used one for a family birthday cake and another one for the birthday party. Here are a couple of downloadable PNG files that are ready to go. Simply right-click the image and save. You can upload these PNG files into Design Space and then size accordingly.

Figure Out the Size that You Want.

I made mine 6 inches wide, which is the same size as the cake. I think it’s substantial enough, yet delicate to balance with the cake.  When I looked at pictures of cake toppers on a google search, they all seemed to be fairly big. That’s another great thing about this project – you can make it any size you want to go with your cake.

What Kind of Cardstock Should You Use?

In this case, the thicker the better. You want something reasonably substantial so that it does not flop over.

That said, I like to use 110lb cardstock. Thinner cardstock would work, however, you may want to double it. To do this, cut a second one out.

I like using glitter cardstock as it tends to be quite thick and I can usually find it at the dollar store.

Be Careful Cutting it Out.

I did a few test runs on some regular cardstock just to make sure the wording was secure in all the right places and that it looked okay. Sometimes if you overlap too much, it’s hard to read what it says, but then not enough, a part of the word falls out! Needless to say, there was a bit of trial and error in my experiments on how to make a cake topper.

Once I got it the way I wanted, I printed it out on glittery, gold cardstock. I found this on sale at Michaels. The setting I used on my Cricut was Poster Board +.

I ran it through to cut twice – a tip I got from Vintage Revivals blog called 6 Cricut Explore Design Hacks. She mentions how after the first cut, instead of taking the mat out, you can just push the cut button again and the Cricut will cut it again in the exact same way. This ensures that everything is properly cut.

My cake topper turned out so nice! The Cricut had trouble with a couple of the thin, swoopy tails – the glitter part got caught and pulled away so I just ended up trimming it off – you can’t really tell. So even though I sent it through to cut twice, it didn’t help this issue. That’s why it’s best to pick a thicker, or “fat” font.

Assemble Your Cake Topper.

Once that was done, I simply used my hot glue gun to glue some wooden skewers to the back. Since mine was only about 6 inches across, 2 skewers were enough. If ever I make a bigger or longer one, I can see how adding another skewer would be helpful. The glittery, gold cardstock is stiff enough to hold up on its own. The skewers did not need to go to the very top of the design. This is another reason why you need a thick font and strong cardstock – if the skewers needed to be placed higher, you could potentially see it through the letters, and not only would it not look nice, but it might interfere with the letters making it hard to read. I was able to hide mine behind the letters so it doesn’t interfere.

If your design is bigger (either in size or in the number of words you are using) and you are concerned with the stability of the topper, I would cut a second one out as mentioned. You could sandwich the skewers in between so that you can’t see them. This adds stability to the cake topper.

This was a relatively easy project (easy once I found a font that worked for this kind of thing) and it turned out so well. It was a really nice addition to the birthday cake.  You could make toppers for any occasion – baby or wedding showers, baptisms, etc. You could also make cute little ones for cupcakes. And this was so cheap to make – just the cost of the cardstock and a couple of skewers – that’s it! Once you know how to make a cake topper, the possibilities are endless!

If you haven’t tried making a cake topper yet, I encourage you to do so. I hope this tutorial on how to make a cake topper helped you. Please feel free to share pictures of your cake toppers with me.

Want to remember how to make a cake topper using your Cricut? Be sure to save this to your favourite Pinterest board.