Make an Acrylic Cake Topper with the Cricut Maker

Hello and welcome .

My name's Angie Holden and I'm the blogger behind the country sheet cottage .

So I have gotten a ton of questions .

So several years ago , I did a video about cutting like thin acrylic plastic or plastic sheets with your cricket maker .

And on that video , question after question after question about , can you make acrylic cake toppers ?

So today I'm tackling that question and I'm making some cute little plastic cake toppers .

So we're gonna start out , we're gonna talk about cutting the plastic .

I'm even gonna walk through design space and how to design these .

So you don't have to do this happy Birthday version and I have a couple more versions , I'm gonna show you .

So this one says celebrate and then I did like a clear plastic one that just says yay , you can also paint the back of these .

Not a problem , but I will show you like the design steps in cricket design space so you can design your own cake topper .

So whatever events you have coming up , design a cute cake topper for it .

So let's dive in , let's look at supplies you're gonna need how to design the cake toppers and then how to finish them , make them and even add vinyl to the front .

The supplies you're gonna need are as follows .

So you'll need your cricket maker with the knife blade to cut the acrylic .

And then for the , the front of those , I'm gonna use some adhesive vinyl and this is a pink holographic adhesive vinyl and I'll link to everything below .

So you can see just where I pick this up .

All right .

And then you'll need a weeding tool and a scraper .

I do recommend a brayer and some transfer tape .

I prefer the cricket brand for this so that I don't um get any like adhesive residue on the plastic itself .

OK ?

So you'll need a strong grip mat .

And then for the acrylic I'm using like this plastic sheeting , I'll link to where I get it on Amazon below .

There are a few different varieties that you can pick up .

This is the one I've had the best luck cutting .

So this is a 0.020 thick sheet .

And it's the thickest that I usually cut with my maker .

It comes in sheets that look like this one .

So it looks opaque because there's a protective film on both sides .

But when you remove that film , it will be 100% completely clear .

So first let's take a look at designing our cake topper , then we'll jump in cut our acrylic , cut our vinyl and assemble everything all right .

So let's take a look at designing each of these kite toppers .

So I have them over here to the side .

So we can see our goal .

I do also want you to make sure that cricket design space is set to maker and not any other machine .

Then let's start with the one with the image .

So what I did was search images for birthday .

Now , you could search for anything you could import an SVG file .

This part would be completely up to you .

I just found something that I thought would look good on top of a cake .

So once I found that I just inserted it in and you can resize it to whatever size you would like .

So I'm going to make my cake tupper itself about six inches in diameter .

So I'm gonna make this a little less and then we'll make a circle and we will make it six inches and see if we like that .

And you will want to make all the pieces you're gonna cut from the plastic , the same color and you can also click a , arrange it , click , send it back .

So you can see more of what it's gonna look like .

So something it it needs to change , either the circle can change or the design , but that was a little large for the circle .

So that looks good , right ?

The other thing we're gonna need is something to stick it in our cake and all I did was use a square shape for that click unlock and drag it to where it's fairly thin , like a little over a quarter of an inch .

And as long as you need it to be , you can like trim that with scissors later after you cut it , it's not a big deal .

So we're gonna pick both of these at this point and we're gonna do a line and center horizontally that puts the square in the center of the circle and with them both picked , we're gonna click weld .

Now that's one piece that you can cut out of your plastic and again , you can arrange , send it back to get a better idea of how it will look and it looks like the perfect cake topper to me .

Now , you can make this with any design that you would like .

Not the happy birthday .

You can also make it any size that you would like .

So I'm gonna just get rid of those and we'll go to the next one and let's do this one here with the lettering .

So we're gonna add some text and I'm gonna make it say yay again , anything that you want it to say is fine and we need a stencil font .

Why do we need a stencil font ?

Because if we were to cut the word ya out of a regular font , the center of a would be missing .

So we would not have that center if you want that look .

That's fine .

But what I like to do is search .

So I'm on Cricket fonts and I'm gonna search for Stencil .

You can also find Stencil fonts um at various places online and then just pick one that you like .

And I don't even remember which one I picked the first time .

So we'll just pick some random font .

And so what you're looking for like this version , when I attach them all to the bottom bar , they would all stay in place if I was to do that with this font , these wipe pieces , these upper pieces would not make it because they wouldn't be attached to the cake tupper .

So I need a different stencil font .

So basically , you're looking for a font that will work with this special case scenario .

And I think this is the one I chose in the first place .

So it's called Authentic Stencil Calm Black .

And what you're gonna do is make this word first , whatever size you want it to be .

So , and I think I might move the letters a little closer together .

Yeah , let's move the letters a little closer together .

So that looks a little better and then we can make it a little bigger and that looks pretty good .

So now we need two squares , one to put the letters on .

So again , we're gonna unlock and we're gonna make it not like that .

We'll move it over to here looks pretty good .

We might move it down just a little bit and we'll click both .

Let's weld that together and make sure it looks ok .

So that looks pretty good .

And now we need a second square to stick into our cake .

So the first square holds all your letters together and the second will be able to put that in your cake and the size of these isn't completely important .

So then we'll pick both of these align center horizontally , weld it together .

And now we want to make sure once again that we change all the plastic pieces to the same color .

And there you have your second cake topper .

So there's another option for making a cake topper .

So now let's look at our third option .

Our third option uses the offset function .

So we're gonna add some text we're gonna celebrate and I used Babette as my font again , whatever font you would like to use .

Let me just go ahead and search because I know that's what I used .

So we can change it to babe and then can change the letter spacing , but it's not going to get it perfect .

So let me make this a little bigger so we can see .

So it is not going to make it perfect doing it that way .

So what I did was I ungrip the letters and then I just moved them closer together as I thought it needed it .

So I did not like the way that bar looked and I made the tea closer and then once like , OK , I'm happy with this .

We're gonna choose all the letters and we're gonna do weld .

So now we have one single piece and now I can make it kind of the size I want for my cake topper .

And then we're gonna do offset and I liked a 0.1 with the rounded corners and we can click apply .

So that looks really good .

And now I'm gonna move my word off and because this is gonna be cut out of vinyl , I'm gonna make it out of the same pink vinyl .

And then this one needs a square just like the other two to insert it into our cake and we'll connect that there .

Now , this one I'll try centering it up .

Yeah .

So if I center it up , it's not going to be just exactly right on that be .

So I'll probably just off center it just a little bit so that it kind of gets perfectly in the center of that be because it will work better and then we'll pick them both weld , change it to the color of our plastic pieces and we can move that to the back , put this over the top to get an idea of how to look .

And we are ready to cut three different cake toppers .

So hopefully that helps show you how to make your own cake toppers for whatever event you may be hosting .

So let's take a look at cutting the acrylic .

So the first thing I'm gonna do is the acrylic comes with a protective film and you'll definitely want to remove it on the side that goes against the mat .

However , I am gonna remove it on both sides just so the cricket does not have to cut through it .

And I've moved my Star wheels all the way over to one side .

So I don't think it will , it will get scratched .

And then I have a strong grip mat and we're just gonna put the acrylic right on that mat .

And what you wanna do is get it down really well .

So I recommend the Brayer for that .

You just wanna press it down all over .

And then if you would like for some extra assurance , I'm gonna go ahead and run some painters tape around this outside edge , right ?

So I have my knife blade installed and I picked heavy chipboard as my setting .

Now , I may not need all the passes for the heavy chipboard .

So you want to watch it when you cut acrylic , you want to watch super carefully .

And you can see , I added painter's tape all the way along the outside edges .

And now I'm just going to press my C to start my cut .

Then once your machine is done cutting , you can remove the mat from your machine and then you can start removing your pieces .

So I just watched this and it was done in about like 16 passes .

Just watch it once it's done , the curved areas will cut last .

So be sure to check the curved areas and then you can remove the pieces from your machine and then just remove the pieces from your mat .

Sometimes it's easier to turn your mat over .

And so I have a couple of different , um , types of cake choppers and I'm gonna cut some vinyl to go with a couple of these and then we'll take a look at putting these together .

OK .

So at this point , your pieces are cut , you can do whatever you want to them .

So you can paint the back .

I'm gonna add vinyl to a couple of them .

This one , I'm just gonna leave the regular plain color um of just the acrylic just to see what it looks like like in photos .

But you could definitely add some paint to the back of these , just customize however you would like .

So for adding the vinyl .

So I cut my pink color graphic vinyl on my cricket just with my fine point blade .

And then I , we did everything .

So we did all the excess away and then we'll just pick this up .

So I do like to use the cricket brand of transfer tape for this .

So you just want to transfer tape that won't leave any residue on this acrylic because it's clear .

Um So I , I like to use like just the duck brand shelf liner from Walmart a lot .

But it does tend to leave a residue sometimes , especially if you leave it a while .

So I tend to avoid it for projects like this and I just go for the more expensive option just so I don't have any residue on my project and then we'll just locate .

So this is Happy Birthday again , I would just make these for whatever event you like with whatever colors you like .

And I'll just stick that down and pull up the transfer tape , leaving that vinyl on our acrylic piece and all that's left to do at this point is add this to a cake .

So this is 100% ready to be added to a cake and you can start celebrating the birthday or whatever other event right away .

So you can see how easy it is to make an acrylic cake topper .

So let's put this in a cake and take a look at it .

All right .

So while these are like , they're not super thick acrylic .

So standing on their own like if I was to hold it from the end , it would probably be a little wobbly .

But once you get it in this cake , it is gonna hold it pretty securely .

So you just want to insert it into the cake and I like to go pretty deep with it .

So that is my acrylic cake topper with my holographic vinyl on the top .

Now you can do this with any of the ones I design or make up your own .

All right , so I did wanna point out so I inserted to celebrate on the video .

Couple of things .

First of all , if you make the stick too long , so your cake isn't as tall as you thought it was just grab a piece of scissors and you can literally just snip it off to the whatever length you want and change the length .

Second thing , the larger the cake topper , the more likely it is like this is really thin plastic , the more likely it is to try to fall over .

So like on this version , I had to stick it further down in the cake so that the bottom of the cake topper is in the cake just a little bit to help hold it straight up .

And so it looks good and doesn't like look floppy in the cake .

So just a couple of things .

So you might want to , you know , not make yours as large .

That's the first option or the second option would be to push it down a little bit further into the cake so that it's not flopping around if that makes sense , this is super thin little plastic sheets .

But if you want the look of an acrylic cake topper are out of time .

Have your cricket maker in the knife blade just make your own , think they look amazing and will look amazing at your next event .

So I hope this helped you .

Hope you learned all about how to make your own acrylic cake topper for every event .

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I'll see you next time .

Bye bye .