Make Cake Toppers with Layers: Rainbows & Mermaids!

Instructions

STEP 1: GET MY LAYERED CAKE TOPPERS DESIGNS

First, download Design #313 from my free resource library — this is my Layered Cake Toppers design. If you are going to cut your own cake topper on your cutting machine, upload the file to your design software. Here is what my Layered Cake Toppers file will look like in Cricut Design Space:

Tip: If you are not sure how to upload an SVG cut file to the Cricut Design Space, watch this helpful video training series I made. If you are on an iPad or iPhone, here is how to download and upload SVG files to the Cricut Design Space app.

STEP 2: PERSONALIZE YOUR LAYERED CAKE TOPPER USING OFFSET IN CRICUT DESIGN SPACE

I want to show you how to personalize your custom cake topper using the Offset feature in Cricut Design Space, but please note that Offset is on Design Space for Desktop only, and it's still in beta so it may not work for everyone.

Let's start creating by ungrouping the designs in the Layered Cake Topper SVG. To ungroup the SVG, select the design and click on the Ungroup button at the top of the Layers panel.

Next, choose the design you want to create and hide or delete the one you don't need. To hide or delete click on the "eye icon" next to the one you don't want to use in the Layers panel on the right.

Let's start with the Mermaid Layered Cake Topper. I have sized this cake topper at about 7" wide x 6.75" high. If you choose to resize the design to meet your needs, make sure to hit "Group" first in the Layers panel so that all of the elements of the design will change size together.

Then click on the "Lock" on the bottom left-hand side of the bounding box to unlock the design which will allow you to resize. Next click on the "arrows" on the bottom right and click and drag to change the size. Once you are happy with the size you can "Ungroup" again to personalize.

Of course you will want to personalize your layered cake topper with the name of your celebrant. You will notice that I have offsets around the text on the cake topper. If you want to create offsets for your text, we can now do this in Design Space with the new Offset tool. Yay! We are all doing a happy dance now that we can create offsets in Cricut Design Space! We now have a way to easily create offsets. The new Offset tool allows us to create outlines both inside and outside of our text, images and even shapes.

We can find the Offset button in the top menu bar of Design Space in between the Edit and the Align buttons.

TIP: The Offset button will not be active (clickable) until you have an object selected on your canvas.

Since we are working with text for our cake layers, I will demonstrate using the new Offset functionality with text on the Mermaid Layered Cake Topper. Check to make sure you have ungrouped the design and delete or hide the objects you do not want. I am going to delete the name on this topper and add a new name. I will also delete the numbers that are on the topper as well so I can change them. First, I will type in my new text. You can use any font that you would like to use for this part of the design. Using the Text tool, I typed the name I wanted to personalize my layered cake topper with.

After I typed the name and it was still selected, I changed the font. To do this I clicked on the down arrow under the font menu on the upper left-hand side of the screen and selected my desired font. I used the Letter Spacing button to adjust the space between the letters.

Once the letters are close enough, you can ungroup the text to fine tune the spacing. This allows you to move each letter individually so you can get everything just right.

Now that I am happy with my spacing, I grouped and welded the text while it was still selected.

In Design Space the default color for text is black and I wanted to change that. To change the color of the text, while the text is selected, click on the color picker box to the right of the Operations button and select the color of your choice.

Now we are ready to add the offset. With the text selected, click on the Offset button and you will see the offset added to your design. Remember, if the Offset button is not clickable, you don't have the object that you want to add the offset to selected. When I first clicked on the offset, a .25 offset was added to my text. I wanted a bit smaller of an offset, so I clicked on the circle on the slider bar and slid to the left a bit to get a smaller offset. Be sure to click the Apply button to accept your the offset once you are happy with it.

TIP: If you change your mind on the offset size after you have clicked apply, you will not be able to change the offset distance. You will need to delete that offset and add a new offset set to your desired distance.

To change the color of your offset, click on the box to the right of the Operation button in the top menu bar and choose your offset color from the color picker. With both the outline layer and the text layer selected, you can use the Align button in the top menu to center them horizontally and vertically if needed. Once you are satisfied with how the offset and text look, group the two layers together while they are both still selected.

Size the image to fit in place on the cake topper by selecting the image and using the arrow in the lower right hand corner. Remember you can also unlock the lock in the bottom left hand corner to adjust the size if you like.

To add the celebrants age, I ungrouped the number set provided in the design and selected the number(s) needed. Delete or hide the remaining numbers from the design before cutting. Follow the same process from above to create an offset, set the offset color, align and size to put in place.

TIP: If you are using more than one number, group those numbers together before creating your offset so that your offset will be based on the set of numbers and not each individual number.

Once the design is ready to cut, and you have decided on paper colors, the fun begins.

STEP 3: CUT YOUR CAKE TOPPER LAYERS ON YOUR CRICUT

Now that I have all my edits completed, I am ready to click the "Make It" button in the upper right hand corner of Design Space.

On the Preview screen, make sure to select the correct size of paper you are using on each mat so that your design cuts properly and and nothing gets cut off. Click the Continue button.

Next, make sure you have the right cutting machine selected and choose the Base Material setting needed for the material you have chosen. I used 65 lb. cardstock for most of my cuts so I used the Light Cardstock setting. Medium Cardstock would also work here. However, when I cut the glitter cardstock I used the Glitter Cardstock setting for my Base Material.

I always select "More" Pressure to assure my cuts are nice and clean.

Load the mat into your machine and press the flashing button to cut your design.

STEP 4: ASSEMBLE YOUR LAYERED CAKE TOPPER

For the Mermaid Layered Cake topper, I first assembled the seaweed onto the solid background (not the backer layer with the cuts for the skewer). Apply glue sparingly onto the seaweed and place onto the background, leaving a bit of a border around the seaweed.

Next I applied the white layer for the tail over the top of the seaweed, again leaving a bit of the background border around the tail. I then applied a small amount of glue to my Happy Birthday lettering, applied the lettering to its offset and glued the pieces to the solid background as well. I also glued my celebrants name to its offset and set it aside for attachment later.

I applied the patterned layer of the tail to the topper using foam dots to give the topper some dimension. Place the foam dots on the back of the tail, remove the paper backing from the foam dots and place the tail in place.

Once the tail is in place, I put the celebrants' name on the topper. Again, I used foam dots on the back of the offset to make it pop off the topper. Apply the foam dots as before, remove the paper backing from the dots and center the celebrants' name on the wave part of the topper.

The last piece I added to the front of the layered cake topper is the cute starfish. First glue the two layers together, then again use foam dots to apply it to the topper. I stacked two foam dots on top of each other for the starfish, as it needed some extra height to rise above the mermaid tail.

This topper is almost complete! The last thing to do is to put the backer onto the topper. You will notice that the backer has some horizontal cuts on each side of it. These are for the skewers to slide through. Apply glue to the backer, being careful to glue around these cuts. You want them to be free so you can easily slide the skewers into the back once it is glued in place. Place the backer piece in place pressing it down well. Once the glue has dried well enough, slide the skewers into their slots. I didn't glue the skewers in place at this point because I wanted the freedom to be able to adjust the height of the topper once I placed it on the cake.

As an optional step, I added a little glitter glue to the mermaid tail, which was just the fun touch it needed. Also, I placed the celebrants' age, that I had created an offset for above, to the end of the mermaid tail. However, you may place that wherever you desire.

And look how cute!

Next we'll assemble the Rainbow Layered Cake Topper. The preparation steps to cut it out are the same as the Mermaid Layered Cake Topper. I have sized this topper at about 8" wide x 4.50" high. If you choose to resize the design to meet your needs, you will want to do that now, before you ungroup the design. Otherwise, go ahead and ungroup the design as shown above.

You can now personalize your cake topper just like we did for the Mermaid Cake Topper Design.

Once you have all your edits completed, click the "Make It" button and follow the same process we did in Step 3.

The first step in assembling the Rainbow topper is to glue the rainbow outline to its corresponding back.

TIP: It's a good idea to figure out which side of the outline piece gets the glue! I lined them up before applying glue to make sure I was putting the glue on the right side. I chose to use adhesive spray on my outline, however you can use any type of glue.

Now the fun begins! Add each rainbow color! It is just like putting together a puzzle. Apply glue sparingly to each rainbow piece and glue it into its place on the rainbow.

Next I added each of the clouds. Again, you will line them up so there is a little border of the blue around each cloud. I glued the first layer of clouds to the rainbow and then layered the smaller clouds on top of them using foam dots, just as we did above for the Mermaid Cake Topper. Apply the foam dots, remove the paper and place the clouds in place.

I personalized my topper by adding the celebrants' name and age to the clouds on each side. Of course you can put them wherever you like.

I also glued Happy Birthday to its offset and then used foam dots on the back of the offset to adhere it to the rainbow. The curve of the offset for the Happy Birthday and the Congratulations included in the file were cut to fit right above the green rainbow.

All that is left is to glue the backer onto the topper and add the skewers. And we do that exactly like we did the Mermaid Cake Topper above.

STEP 5: SHOW IT OFF!

Customer cake toppers are such a cute, fun way to decorate a cake!