If I had to identify the one craft item that I sell the most of it would be custom cake/dessert toppers. I have made toppers for regular-size and mini cupcakes, single-tier to three-tier cakes, and even cookie cakes! Together with a customer’s request, as well as a little inspiration from Pinterest and Etsy, I can make just about any 2D (flat) topper and some 3D ones with a little creativity. Add a toothpick or popsicle/candy stick with some hot glue, and voila you have a dessert matching the Theme of your party. To see some of my other cake toppers check out this link:
I am writing this post today to share the general workflow I use to create a cursive sentiment topper. I understand this is a little lengthy, but I look forward to the day that Cricut adds an offset feature to Design Space and they they stop with the weird letter spacing when using many system fonts.
Check out the time-lapse video I took of this process.
Tools used:
Mac Computer
Pages or Keynote
Silhouette Studio
Cricut Design Space
Cricut Maker and tools
2-way glue pen
Hot Glue Gun and sticks
Popsicle Sticks/Toothpicks
Create the image you want to cut: 1. Design the sentiment in Pages/Keynote. I prefer this vs. creating directly in Cricut Design Space because it’s easier to manipulate and then I have a clean white background image to take a screenshot.
2. Zoom in on the document/Pages screen and take a screenshot that saves to your desktop [Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + Command + 4]
Make a thicker version so that the topper is more sturdy
3. Open Silhouette Studio, drag the screenshot onto your digital mat. Use the "Trace" feature to create the cut-able object. Refer to this tutorial: Silhouette 101 - Trace Feature (Basic Edition and Higher)
4. Fill the thicker cut object with any color; this is to easily see the preferred thickness of the Offset feature 0.060. Refer to this tutorial to learn how to use the "Offset" feature: Silhouette 101 - Offset Feature (Basic Edition and Higher)
5. Delete the solid/thinner cut object. Then select the thicker cut object and select "Release Compound Path"; this is to fix any of the loops/holes to make them slightly bigger and/or to get rid of ones you don’t need. Once the modifications are made, highlight all the lines and select "Make Compound Path". To better understand Compound Paths refer to: SILHOUETTE STUDIO COMPOUND PATHS: EXPLAINED!
6. Position the image in the top/left of the digital Silhouette mat (expand to about 8" wide max), then "Print to PDF" for a higher quality image compared to a screenshot from within Silhouette Studio.
Import/Upload to Cricut Design Space
7. Open the PDF in preview, make the image as large as possible while still fitting on the single screen, and take another screenshot. This step is necessary because Cricut Design Space doesn’t Upload PDF formatted images and we want the highest resolution image as possible which makes your cut lines smoother. [Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + Command + 4]
8. Open Cricut Design Space and upload the screenshot of the thicker image. Remove the background (all white) and save it as Cut Image. Refer to the YouTube Tutorial: Uploading Images to Cricut Design Space.
9. I cut three version of the object (1 glitter, 2 non-glitter) and used a 2-way liquid glue to adhere the layers together. Then I hot glued a popsicle stick to the backside.
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