Learn how to make cute and personalized Cricut cupcake toppers for any special occasion and theme birthday party, baby shower, and more!

I’ve used my Cricut machine to make quite a few DIY cupcake toppers over the years, so I decided it was finally time to put together this easy Cricut craft in a post for you.

Making your own cupcake toppers means that you can design them to fit any party theme. You can add the birthday girl’s name to the custom cupcake toppers or an age or favorite image, really the possibilities are endless!

And since these cupcake toppers are small and just cardstock you can use any Cricut cutting machine to make them – Cricut Maker, Cricut Explore Air family, or the Cricut Joy!

If you have the Cricut Maker or Cricut Maker 3, you can cut thicker materials if you want, but most cupcake toppers just get thrown away, so an easy way to save money is to just use paper or card stock.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from Shareasale, Cricut, Awin, CreativeFabrica, and Amazon.com. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my links (purple text). As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

In this tutorial, we will be going through the steps on how to use Cricut Design Space to customize a cute mermaid-themed standard cupcake size topper, but you can always make matching cupcake wrappers or a matching DIY cake topper (find my Cricut cake topper tutorial here).

teacher luncheon ideas — Cupcake Wrappers cut with a Cricut

Or use the same cupcake topper design to make party decorations and favor boxes as I did for this cute baby shower.

We will be using SVG files within Cricut Access, but you can always find images on free SVG websites or Creative Fabrica (my fave!) to cut out.

If you don’t know about Creative Fabrica, make sure to check them out!

Get 10 Credits for Free – Once you download the 10th credit or after a month, you’ll be charged the monthly subscription fee of $9. So if you don’t want to pay at all only download 9, then cancel your subscription. Or pay the $9 for a month and download as much stuff as you want during that month, and then cancel before the month is over! That’s what I did before I just decided to buy the full year since I use them so much!!
Get a full year for $59

Making cute Cricut cupcake toppers really is so much fun! Ok, let’s get to it!

How to Make Cupcake Toppers with a Cricut

Yield: Multiple Cupcake Toppers

Active Time: 5 minutes

Additional Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Difficulty: Beginner

Estimated Cost: $2

By combining a few images together in Cricut Design Space, you can cut out custom party cupcake toppers in minutes!

Materials

Cardstock - I'm using glitter cardstock and regular cardstock for the base layer. You could also use glitter paper or shimmer paper for extra sparkle!
Toothpicks or other small sticks such as lollipop sticks, cocktail stick

Tools

Cricut machine
Cutting mat
Hot Glue Gun or other adhesive (optional: double sided foam strips)

Instructions

Open up a new canvas in the Cricut Design Space software. I searched "mermaid" in the search bar in the Images panel. I found two different images that I wanted to use parts of. Click on each and insert on canvas.
I am going to use the mermaid tail for the main part of the topper but I wanted to add some cute embellishments from the collection image. To get rid of the other Cricut images in the collection, you can ungroup and delete them off or use the contour tool.
I like to put the toothpick in between two layers so you can't see it on the back of the topper. To make a base layer, click on the image and then on the Offset tool. I decreased the size a lot since I only wanted a small difference. Click Apply.
For my image, the offset tool left small cutouts which I didn't want. So with the shadow layer selected, I clicked on Contour and chose Hide All Contours. And then X out of the screen. Now you're just left with the silhouette image!
Now I'm ready to add customization! You can add a name or sentiment or a number. I inserted a text box and typed in the number 6. Then changed the Cricut font to Birthday Bash.
The font is multi-layer so make sure the second layer is visible. Size the number to fit where you want. Then on the layers panel, click on the Shadow Layer of the mermaid tail and then while you're holding down Ctrl or Cmd, click on the shadow layer of the number. This selects both of the images. Then click on Combine and Unite in lower right.
Then I put all the extra embellishments next to the cupcake topper image, and changed the size to under three inches (which I find is the right size for my cupcakes!).
Click Make It. On the Prepare screen, increase the project quantity to how many you need and click Apply.
Now it's time to start cutting! Follow all the onscreen prompts from CDS to cut each color of card stock. Make sure to change your material settings in between cuts if using different types of cardstock, ie glitter card stock setting and then 80 lb card stock for regular. Place cardstock on Cricut mat and load and unload when prompted.
The easiest way to remove cardstock images is by peeling the mat away from the cut images. Flip the mat upside down and peel it back from the paper.
Once all the pieces are cut and removed from the mats, it's time to assemble! The first step is to glue the stick to the shadow layer. Use a hot glue gun or glue stick or alternatively you can use thin foam double sided pop up adhesives to account for the thickness of the stick.
Glue the top layer to the bottom with the stick in between. You might have to make a crease in the top layer to make the edges lay flat.
Then glue all the rest of the embellishments on to finish the simple cupcake toppers with a glue pen or tacky glue.
The cute Cricut cupcake toppers are all ready to stick in a cupcake!