Fourth of July Cake Topper

Because July is my birthday month, I like to celebrate every day of it.

It’s super handy that right at the beginning is a National Holiday, complete with popsicles, parades and fireworks.

Which naturally leads to … crafting!

You’ve seen those super cute and or super pretty cake toppers on Pinterest and Etsy, of course? If you have a cutting machine like a Silhouette Cameo, or Cricut, they are very easy to make yourself. I think it would be possible to do these by hand, but pretty tedious, so I’m going to leave that decision up to you if you don’t have a cutting device.

But if you do, I have a present for you – a free zip file that contains the most common formats so you can make your own.

Click the graphic to the left for the download (do it on your computer, not a mobile device) and then unzip the file and using your particular cutting machine software, upload the appropriate file.

I hand lettered this design, keeping in mind that for a successful cake topper, you need two things – 1) everything has to touch, somehow and 2) you need a place to insert the toothpick.

Once I was happy with the design, I exported it as a DXF file, because I’m a Silhouette Studio user, and I haven’t upgraded to the version that allows more file types to be used. There’s a DXF version in the free zip file. If you are a Cricut user, you can use the SVG file I’ve provided.

To cut an ornate cake topper, you don’t really want to use super thick card stock. All those curves and small cutouts will be hard to get cleanly cut from thick stock. But if you use thin stock, the topper will be floppy and look sad on top of your cake. So the compromise trick is to cut multiples out of thin card stock, and glue them together.

This is where I think it would be hard to do by hand – they all need to match exactly so they glue up evenly.

I have found the perfect number to cut is three. I sent that to cut, and once I weeded all three, I glued two of them together.

I have a small tape runner from Tombow (not an ad, just a recommendation) that is perfect for this. Carefully align the two pieces together, and stick them together.

I glue the third one on top of the set that I just made, with one little difference – as I match up the bottom loops of the “f”, I inserted a flat edged toothpick that was coated in a little quick dry white glue. I held that edge together for a minute to let it get good adhesion, and then I left the whole thing to dry.

Once it’s all set up, I used my fingernail and another clean toothpick to rub off the little gluey bits that hung over the edges. And now I’m all set for my birthday holiday cupcake!

Pin this for when you are ready to make your own cupcake or cake topper.

This post will be linked up at some of these great locations.

And if you use the free files to make your own, I’d probably do a little happy dance if you’d tag me on instagram (@SuzerSpace) so I could see them!