How to make Sunflower cupcake toppers using your Cricut machine.

Have you ever decided to throw a theme party only to realize your theme of choice isn’t very common? Or that the decorations will not make it in time for the party? Perhaps you want something like sunflower cupcake toppers at the last minute?

Here I’m going to share how to make sunflower cupcake toppers using your Cricut cutting machine.

In light of my friends daughters first birthday, I got to make some sunflower cupcake toppers decorations for the cupcakes.

And although you can find some sunflower theme party decorations on the web, my friend decided at the last minute to throw the party and they would not make it in time.

I love to make stuff, so making these for my friend was just a great excuse to craft something up. Even if I had to wait till the baby went to bed, I was going to enjoy it. Total cost for this project if you don’t have the supplies already would probably be about 10 dollars. I ,of course, had the cardstock and glue already, I just needed some toothpicks that I got from the Dollar Tree.

Supplies Needed:

• Brown glitter card stock
• Light shade of yellow cardstock
• Metallic color marker
• Tacky Glue
• Toothpicks
• Light blue cutting mat
• Circut Explore Air 2 Machine

The original plan for these cupcakes were to make just the leaf toppers to add to the icing decorated sunflower. But trying to make sunflower petals from the frosting wasn’t going as planned.

So we changed the idea to making the cupcakes into grass frosting and the toppers being the sunflowers. Gotta love it when you have a back up plan.

My go to designing software has become Inkscape. Its a free software that allows you to pretty much do anything you want, you just have to learn how to use it. It is similar to Abode Illustrator in a few aspects but once you start playing with the software it becomes pretty easy to use.

In Inkscape, I create two 6 pointed stars. Layering both stars on top of each other. Then I tweak the curves a little so its not all sharp, leaving some roundness to resemble flower petals.

I made a slightly oblong round circle and placed it on top, sizing it to fit in the middle of the petals. Then I select both and make the flower into the preferred size for the cupcakes. Select your flower, press your CTRL and D keys at the same time to make duplicates.

I made about 12. Then I separated the circles from the sunflowers. I now have 12 sunflower petals and 12 sunflower cores.

Next save your work by selecting the “save selected” section. This allows you to save just the sunflowers and circles with a transparent background instead of with a white background. When it asks you how you want to save it, select the png. This method works when you use the Inkscape software.

Getting into Cricut Design Space.

Bring up your Cricut Design Space, click new project, then click upload image.Click browse and find your saved sunflowers and press upload. Since this is just a basic shape you can select the simple image type.

If you have a white back ground, go ahead and erase that then press continue. Here it gives you two options to save your image. I choose the “save as a cut image” for our sunflowers.

Also go ahead and name your image and add a tag word to make it easy to find in the future. I name mine as Cupcake toppers and for my tag word I used sunflowers. Click continue, then click your new uploaded image.

When it comes up in Design Space its going to include the sunflowers and middle circles together. If you don’t want extra work you can save your sunflower petals and middle circles on separate pages. Then upload each image and be done with it.

Slicing in Design Space.

But if you didn’t do that just take a square shape and place on top of your sunflower. Select both image then slice them. It will give you three new images. I usually delete the first two and keep the last one.

Since your sunflowers and middle circles will be cut on different paper, select one of them and change the color. This helps the machine to separate the cuts into two different papers.

When you are ready, press the “Make it” button.

It will show you a preview of your mats and ask to continue and load your mat. Select light card stock for the sunflower petals and the dot between bonded fabric and card stock for the glitter paper for the middle circles. I’ve found this setting works best when using the glitter card stock.

Let your Cricut Machine do its magic and unload your first mat when prompt. Flip your mat upside down and peel your cardstock off gently. Set it to the side then load your next mat and repeat.

The sunflowers and circles should come right off the mat with ease. Perfectly cut to perfection. Now since all the technical part is done, its now just putting everything together.

Remember that marker from earlier, grab it and draw a few curve lines from the inside points to the middle of the sunflower, basically making some V’s. This gives it contrast and softens up the flower.

Grab your tacky glue and add a small dot of glue to the sunflower, then place your glitter circle on top. Repeat till all of them are done.

Next flip your sunflower over, add a small dot of tacky glue and then place your toothpick on your glue. Repeat and allow them to dry.

Congrats!! You are all done. Now if you wanted to make the leaves its the same process only with a leaf shape. I did use some textured card stock for the leaves to give them that real leaf look.

I hope you enjoyed this easy and simple tutorial on how to make your own sunflower cupcake toppers.

My friend loved these toppers and I enjoyed making them. I’d love to hear if you decide to make your own cupcake toppers.

Don’t forget to share and pin this for a future party.

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