Halloween Cupcake topper swap and tutorial

I was in another cupcake topper swap through swap-bot. These things are soooo much fun to make. Anyhoo, my partners received them so now I can post them.

I've had a few emails asking how to make these so I thought I'd put something together to show the process.
Bake and Destroy has some awesome ones which she sells through etsy.

Some people REALLY go all out and use glitter, ribbons, etc. I keep mine fairly simple...I don't want to eat plastic glitter.
You could even buy stickers and skip the 'cutting out' process.

First, you will need to gather your supplies:

non-toxic white glue
scotch tape
double prong toothpicks (from Target & Dollar Tree in the paper product section)
wax paper to protect your table from glue spills
stickers or images you've cut out***
background paper if mounting
ribbon, glitter, extras..
paper punches...for these, I used a 1.5 circle punch. I also have a scalloped punch that is 2 .5 which works well.

***I have Publisher and find a ton of free clip art that I copy and print. Then I cut them all out at once. I find that a good 'size' is when you can fit 12-16 pictures on one sheet of paper. I got some in a swap where the lady had drawn the images, then scanned them to her computer first. They are super cute....here is a picture of them. Stickers would work too....

In this photo, I've shown you the back of one topper and the front of another kind. You use a small amount of glue on the upper portion of the tooth pick.

The 'skull' topper is made this way:
glue the skull to a circle you made using the circle paper punch.
Once dried, glue the circle to the toothpick. This takes a little bit longer because you have to let everything dry twice.

This is what they look like when done:


Then, package them up like you'd find them in the store. They should fit easily into a small zipper top baggie. I found that by folding the top down a bit, it shortens the baggie just right. Be sure the picks are all pointing in one direction, not helter skelter. You don't want them damaged.


The school where my kids go prefer muffins over cupcakes with icing. I think these toppers make them look really cute!

I made some others this summer. You can see them in this post and in this post too. This post shows some toppers that someone sent me. I forgot to take a close up. If you double click on the third photo you can see them a little better.