Greetings, fellow scrappers! It’s time for another crafty Halloween hybrid, and it’s going to be….cupcake toppers!

Cupcakes with Hybrid Toppers

Eat If You Dare...

Halloween Riddles On Cupcake Toppers

Hey – do you ever have problems  frosting your cupcakes? (Off Topic: Why did that sound so wrong?)  Do you use a kitchen spoon to glop the frosting onto the cupcake like I do  and  spread it around in a sloppy fashion, secretly glad that you can  brightly tell people:  “My four year old helped!”?  If you are worried that your baked delights are less than worthy of being featured in a Martha Stewart spread, never fear — with these lovely and/or creepy cupcake toppers, nobody will even notice the frosting. They will just stand there in awe of your crafting prowess, jaws  slack, at which point you can easily shove in a cupcake for their gustatory pleasure.  And if your cupcakes are actually so gorgeous that people have to scream “LOOK AWAY! They are so delightful that they will burn my retinas!” you can still benefit from some cute toppers, right? Because maybe the toppers can absorb some of that crazy glow and make your cupcakes less siren-like?

First of all, make some cupcakes and frost them.  You’re on your own for that part, sorry…I described my frosting procedure up above, and it ain’t pretty.  But this next part IS going to be pretty.

Gather up a few things you will need:

• plain white cardstock for printing
• white lollipop sticks (found at Michael’s or a local craft/baking store)
• craft scissors
• Scotch tape
• glue sticks

If you don’t have white lollipop sticks you could probably get by with toothpicks, drinking straws, or wooden BBQ skewers.  Just be careful of sharp edges if you try to break the wooden BBQ skewers into two (we learned this the hard way) — use the proper cutting tool to do it (I have a small hand-held branch cutter that is perfect.)

Cupcake Toppers With Cute Anthropomorphic Creatures...Almost Too Cute To Eat, Right?

To Get Started:

1. Open Photoshop.
2. Start an 8.5×11″  blank white document.
3. Select some shapes to start your toppers, using (what else?) some cool DHD kits.
4. Drag the shapes you like onto the 8.5×11 document, and resize them as desired.  Name the layers too (top right, bottom left, etc.); this will come in handy because you’ll end up with a lot of layers on your document.

Sample Kits To Use:

Here are some DHD kits that I used.  Deena Rutter has different circles and shapes with fancy edges.   Just select the .jpg versions of her  files to pull onto your document, and then you can clip papers to them to make them Halloween-y.

Deena Rutter's D-Cut Basic Shapes and Word Art, Vol. 1

I also like this kit from Sara Schmutz.  The circle shapes are perfect for cupcake toppers, and if you want a different color, that’s no problem — just clip some Halloween papers to the shape once you pull it onto your document.

Sarah Schmutz - Dainty Complete Embellishment Collection

I also loved this kit by Jen Allyson…now is the time for a few creepy embellies, like skulls, and her circle with the point triangle border is perfect as a cupcake topper base! I used that shape for quite a few of my toppers, with different papers clipped to it.

Jen Allyson Vintage Findings Halloween Elements

One of my starting pages looked like this.  I pulled in a circle I liked from Jen’s kit, resized it to make it a bit smaller, and duplicated it.

Starting The Cupcake Toppers

Adjusting the Colors: I liked the brown edges on the triangle parts, but wanted to adjust the interior color on a few of the circles so I could have a mix of colors and styles.   I created a plain white circle that fit right over the orange inside part of Jen’s shape and layered it on top.  Then I clipped colorful dotted or striped papers from Gennifer Bursett’s collection to the white circle and added a drop shadow from her shadow styles to make it look cooler and more 3D.   Before I clipped Gen’s paper to the white circle, I shrunk the entire sheet of it  so I could see more of the dots and stripes. I just thought it looked good that way.

Gennifer Bursett No Tricks, Just Treats Full Collection

To make a white circle:

• Hold down the SHIFT key while you click and drag  the Ellipse Tool.
• Hit ENTER when you are done.  You will now have a circle.
• Hit  CTR T to get your transform handles; hold down the SHIFT key while you drag one corner up or down to make the circle larger or smaller in diameter.  Hit ENTER to accept your changes.
• Hit V to get your move tool; drag the circle on top of the base.  Adjust if you still need it bigger or smaller.
• You can “nudge” the circle  around to place it perfectly by using arrow up, arrow down, arrow to sides.

Here’s what my page looked like when I was starting the process of creating the white circles and clipping paper to them.

Changing the Interior Color of the Starting Shapes

Once I had the interiors  colorful, I  added  text and embellishments.  I used  a  skull from Jen’s kit and words that I wrote  reading “Eat If You Dare,” and  pumpkins and alphas  to spell “BOO”  from Robyn Meierotto’s Happy Haunting embellishment kit.  The staple is from Audrey Neal’s kit called Everyday Celebrations Journal Bits. If you’re planning to make these  JUST like I made them,  the “OO” in “BOO” is actually two zeros from the number section of Robyn’s alpha kit, and the “B” is from the alpha letters.

Robyn Meierotto Happy Haunting Full Kit

On one of my toppers, I wanted to add some words in a white circle border.

Here’s how to  add a white ring:

1. Using the ellipse tool, make a white circle and center it over your topper.
2. Rasterize the circle:  Make sure that the circle’s layer is highlighed in the layer palette at the right.  Then select LAYER –> RASTERIZE –> SHAPE from the top menu.   If you don’t do this, you won’t be able to cut a piece out of the center of your circle.
3. Select the circular marquee tool from your tool palette.  Make sure the circle shape you want to cut  is highlighted in the layer palette.  Hold down SHIFT and draw a marching-ants circle with your marquee, slightly smaller than your  shape that you want to middle-cut.  Once the marching-ants circle is drawn, let up on the mouse button and drag the marching-ants circle around the screen to get it exactly in the center of the shape that needs its middle to be severed.
4. Hit DELETE.
5. You should now have a white ring.

Creating a White Ring for Text

Now it’s time to add text in a circle.  There may be an  easier way to do it,  but here’s what I do.

1. In the layers and channels palette, there should be a PATH palette as well. If you do not see it in the tabs, go to WINDOW –> PATHS at the top of the screen, and it will appear.
2. In the paths palette, select NEW PATH.  You can get this by clicking on the tiny drop down arrow at the far end of the palette, or on the icon at the very bottom of the palette.
3. Using the ellipse tool, draw a circle while holding down the SHIFT key.  When it’s the right size, hit ENTER.
4. Now select the Text tool, and click on the rim of the circle. The cursor should have an I with a wiggly line through it; this means you will type on the path.
5. You can type now, and you will see the text follow the circular path.
6. When you are done typing, hit the checkmark at the top of the screen to accept the text.
7. When you go back into the LAYERS tab, you will see the text you typed on its own layer.
8. You can resize the entire text circle by hitting CTL T (Command T on a MAC) and dragging it  while holding the SHIFT key to make it bigger or smaller.
9. To edit the text itself, hit T to get your text tool, click in the area of the text, and make your edits.  I usually play around with spacing and add extra words to make it look good in the circle. I used Hypatia Sans Pro at a size 11 for these examples.  I also opened the character palette and changed the spacing between my letters to make it look better.
10. You can hit the V key to get your move tool, then drag your text circle around and nudge it with the arrow keys to get it centered correctly in the white ring.

Add embellishments as you like! Here’s one of my finished pages just before I printed it.

Cupcake Toppers Ready To Print!

More Ideas:  Riddles, Ingredients, Cuteness

You can also make some cupcakes with Halloween riddles.  The shapes  are from Deena Rutter’s  cutting files describe above, the tags are from Jen Allyson’s kit, and the papers are from Gennifer Bursett’s kit.   I made a front and a back — the riddle goes on the front; the answer on the back, and this way the cupcakes look colorful no matter which way they are viewed.  The “Skull Cakes”  has a fake ingredient list that I made up, hoping to get a few chuckles from the ravenous yet  literary-minded eater.

Funny Riddles, Funny Ingredients

Text Reads…

Some of the riddles are:  Where do little ghosts learn to say BOO?  At noisery school.  What do you call serious rocks?  Grave Stones. Why did the mummy go on vacation?  To relax and unwind. I found  dozens more by searching Google for “Halloween Jokes.”

My  ingredients list has things like powdered rat bone, high fructose corn syrup, MSG,  snail slime, witches’ snot, and The Dried Out Stuff From The Edges Of  The Ragu Jar That’s Been In The Fridge For Four Months...you know, the kind of junk that might go into a gross ghoulish cake.  You can surely invent some fun ingredients of your own, or use mine if they sound really appealing.

Once you have your pages ready, print them out onto thick paper like cardstock.  Cut them out with craft scissors, then use glue sticks or Scotch tape to fasten them to the lollipop sticks.  Glue stick works well if you are doing a front side and back side to the toppers.  Once the glue has dried, you can arrange them in your cupcakes  as you like and let your guests enjoy!

Want some cute ghosties?  Here you go!

I asked my daughter what SHE would like to see on some special cupcake toppers just for her. I showed her some embellies, and let her pick which ones she wanted.  Here are a few examples using her suggestions.  I used Sara Schmutz’ shapes as the base, and Kate Teague’s Life In October embellishment pack for the decorations.

Kate Teague Life In October Illustrations

I think they’re really cute!  Once they were done, we played with them like puppets and did our own puppet show.  It was fun.

Cupcake Toppers - Cute Style!

More Toppers - Plain Ghosts or Pumpkins Make Great Toppers, Too

Instead of Cupcakes…

If you want to make these toppers but don’t want to make cupcakes, perhaps because you are already feeling sick and bloated from eating a whole bag of candy corn that was “supposed” to be “for the trick or treaters,”  or just because you want to reserve calorie space for a Milky Way next week, you can stick these into apple slices, sandwich wedges, pieces of cheese…they can gussy up ANY kind of edible spread.  You could even stick them into whole apples and make a really awesome fruit display.   Another option is to fasten them to long wooden BBQ skewers and arrange the skewers in a vase — it could be a cute Halloween centerpiece.

Lots of Cupcakes for a Party...Or Bring Some To Your Neighbors!

I hope my post gave you a few ideas, or at least a few chuckles.  If you make these or anything similar, please post a pic to the gallery  so we can all enjoy! And tell me what kind of food you plan to stick these into — cupcakes?  Glistening, quivering slices of SPAM?  A roast chicken for dinner?  Individual Rice Krispies*?  (*This one might be difficult.)  Thanks for reading along, and I hope you are having a fun Fall season!

P.S. –  If you’re thinking, “Hey, her frosting job didn’t look as horrible as she described!”  thank you for noticing!  I found some easy- squeazy cans of aerosolized frosting at the grocery store that were really fun to use, and gave me a better-looking frosting job than the spoon.  I know that every time I pressed the trigger, Martha Stewart probably had a seizure and that cooking snob Anthony Bourdain clutched his throat and staggered in pain, but I was having a good old time.  I hope you do, too!

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Tags: 13 Days of Fall and Halloween Hybrid, deena rutter, Digital Hybrid Project, Gennifer Bursett, Jen Allyson, Jennifer Valencia, Kate Teague, Robyn Meierotto, Sara Schmutz