How To Make Acrylic Cake Toppers

 Posted By TeckWrap Craft On April 22, 2023

What’s a cake without a personalized greeting topper on it? With a blank acrylic cake topper, your cutting machine and adhesive vinyl, you can make your own acrylic cake toppers anytime!

In this crafting guide, you’ll learn how to make acrylic cake toppers. Whether it be for birthdays, weddings or any other special occasion, or perhaps a business idea, if you’re in the baking industry, then you should read further.

Supplies Needed To Make A Personalized Cake Topper

• Acrylic discs (available in TeckWrap Craft in round and hexagon shapes)
• TeckWrap Craft adhesive vinyl
• Cutting machine
• Squeegee
• Transfer tape
• Weeding tools
• Cutting mat
• Acrylic or wooden stick (to serve as a stand for cake toppers)
• Glue gun
• Cleaning supplies (Alcohol, cotton pads or clen cloth)
• Optional: Acrylic paint, glitter cardstock, printable sticker

Step By Step Guide On How To Create Cake Toppers

• What design should you place on the cake topper? A personalized greeting? The celebrant’s name?
• How many cake toppers will you use?
• What pattern or design of craft adhesive vinyl will you use?
• Will you match the adhesive vinyl’s color to the cake’s color?
• Will you paint over the acrylic cake topper to serve as the background?
• Will you use additional decorations like glitter cardstock or silver dust?

There are many ways you can pull off this project and make it one-of-a-kind. In the first place, you need your custom cake topper to stand out. There is no limit in your creativity. As soon as you’ve figured it out, then let’s start with your DIY acrylic cake topper project.

Step 1: Upload Your Design

On your Silhouette or Cricut design space, upload and resize the design. Remember that TeckWrap Craft’s cake toppers come in different sizes and shapes. So make sure to use a ruler to measure your design’s size and make sure it fits well. Check out the photos below for the shape and size reference.

Round Acrylic Blank - 3.1 inches circumference

Round Acrylic Blank - 4 inches circumference

Hexagon Discs

When creating a DIY cake topper, the bigger the better so you won’t struggle with placing a small adhesive vinyl on the acrylic’s surface. What’s more important is that the size of the design should fit well into the acrylic blank.

Step 2: Clean The Cake Topper’s Surface

Before painting over the cake topper or placing adhesive craft vinyl, make sure it has a clean surface so the craft vinyl will adhere properly. First, remove the plastic sheets, both back and front of the acrylic topper. With your cleaning supplies, using alcohol, cotton pad or a clean cloth, clean the surface.

Make sure there are not fingerprint marks, specks of dust or oily residues over it. Also, after cleaning, avoid touching the surface with your bare hand to avoid leaving fingerprint marks on it. Of course, make sure that the alcohol completely dries off before placing any design.

Step 3: Place A Background

To make things more interesting, why not place a background on your DIY cake topper? In the first place, you’re placing this on a colorful cake, more color won’t hurt. Since acrylic toppers are transparent, adding more color into it will make it pop out.

Just like the photos you see above, a background with contrasting color to the craft vinyl is always recommended. For the background, you can either use acrylic paint or adhesive craft vinyl.

Also remember to use contrasting colors. Preferably a lighter tone for the background and a dark-colored adhesive craft vinyl for the actual print.

If you’re using an adhesive craft vinyl as your background, make sure to resize the design before cutting it on your cutting machine. In case you decide to paint over it, make sure that the paint completely dries off before placing adhesive vinyl in it.

Step 4: Cut The Design

The next step is to cut your design on the cutting machine. To make sure you won’t miss out on a step, follow these instructions:

• Cut out a size of adhesive vinyl slightly bigger than the design. For example, if the design is just 2 inches in size, cut a vinyl of at least 3 inches.
• Adjust the media size on the cutting mat’s software (Cricut Maker or Silhouette Cameo’s Design Studio)
• Do not mirror!
• Place the vinyl on the cutting mat
• Change the settings of the material used to either ‘Adhesive vinyl’ or ‘Craft Vinyl’ depending on the cutting machine software you used
• There are other softwares that lets you choose the type of craft vinyl material you need to cut (e.g. Metallic, glitter). The blade depth, force and speed of the cutting machine will automatically adjust depending on the material you chose.
• Always test cut and try to weed
• If the test cut does not come off easily, manually adjust the blade depth or force (usually in crease). If the paper backing comes off while weeding, decrease the depth or force.
• If the test cut is successful, start to cut!
• Once done, weed the excess vinyl using your weeding tools.

Step 5: Transfer The Design In A Transfer Tape

By this time, you’re almost ready to see your own cake topper come to life. The next step is to transfer the vinyl design into the transfer tape. Here are the steps:

• Remove the paper backing of the transfer tape
• Lay it flat on top of the vinyl design, with the sticky side down. Your goal is to transfer the vinyl onto the transfer tape.
• Use a squeegee to ensure the vinyl transfers onto the transfer tape.
• Remove the adhesive vinyl’s paper backing
• Set it aside, with the transfer paper touching the table

Step 6: Transfer The Design Onto The Acrylic Cake Topper

The next step is to transfer the vinyl onto the cake topper. Granting the background vinyl is already in place. Or if you opted to paint over it, make sure the paint has completely dried off. Then transfer the design onto the cake topper, with the sticky side facing the cake topper.

Use a squeegee to flatten it out and ensure proper transfer. Once you’re confident it has adhered to the cake topper, remove the transfer tape and see your custom cake topper come to life. Easy, huh?

Optional Step: Create A Stand For Your DIY Acrylic Cake Topper

This is an optional step, as you may have the freedom to directly place the cake topper on top of the cake, or you can make a stand using a wooden or acrylic stick. All you have to do is place a stick at the back of the cake topper, use a glue gun or tape to adhere the stick in place

Make sure it cannot be seen in front, that’s why placing a background on the cake topper helps as well. Then there you have it! You now have a cake topper with a stand you can just place on your own baked cake or perhaps give justice to a boring store bought cake. Super easy!

Bonus Step: Add More Designs To Your DIY Cake Topper

A bonus step in making personalized cake toppers is to pair with other decorations like edible decorations (just like the photo above), pretzels, candy sticks, cut out stickers placed on a cardboard, or custom-shaped printed stickers.

If you have a Cricut machine, there are plenty of ideas you can create to make your custom cake toppers a one-of-a-kind. Just make sure all color hues match and not to over do it! But don’t be afraid to create two or more custom cake toppers, why not? Because you can!

If you want to check out more design inspirations, check out the video tutorials at TeckWrap Craft’s Instagram Page. You can also draw inspiration from the designs of Cricut cake toppers, just make sure to create your own design or download SVGs free for personal and commercial use.

Make Your Own Cake Toppers Now!

On your next celebration, let your work stand out and create a DIY acrylic cake topper. Don’t settle with the store bought cake toppers that everybody uses, stand out! All the materials you need to create your own cake topper is available here at TeckWrap Craft! Shop now through the website and have it shipped right to your doorstep.