One Cute Nursery

The Joy of Designing for Baby and Beyond

Free DIY Valentine’s Day Cupcake Toppers and a tutorial

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DIY projects for any kind of party have become popular in the last couple of years and even though most the items I sell are handcrafted by me {yes, one by one}, I also love designing DIY projects for my customers. They come in handy especially when they are overseas.
The most popular item sold for birthday parties are the Cupcake Toppers and today I am going to show you step by step how to make yours at home,  given you already have purchased or downloaded a file for free.

I have made these Valentine’s Day Party Circles for you. Download them here for free. Please remember to read my Terms of Use first. Let’s get to it!

First of all, you must gather your tools and materials. Some items – such as paper, printer and scissors – you should have handy at home but if you’re not the crafty type, there are some other items you must purchase or borrow. Click on each item to take a look or purchase some of my favorites. 
TOOLS AND MATERIALS:

 – White Paper Card Stock – 65 lb

– Inkjet Color Printer
– Sharp Scissors for paper
– 2″ scalloped squeeze punch
– 4″ Lollipop sticks or wood craft sticks
– Hot glue gun or craft glue
– Hot glue clear sticks if you decide to use a hot glue gun

OPTIONAL ITEMS:

– 2″ circle squeeze punch
– 2.25″ circle punch

TUTORIAL

I will break it down in 4 easy steps: print, cut, punch and glue.

1. PRINT
With your color printer, print your file as many times as you wish at 100% scale.

2. CUT
With the scissors, cut each row of the party circles.

Now, for the tricky part:

Each craft punch has a different “reach throat” that’s the maximum distance your craft punch will reach on the paper. The one I use for my crafts has a very small throat and it’s a matter of trial and error until you get the hang of it. Gosh! I wish there was a scallop punch out there with long reach. I am sure there is, I just haven’t done much research. I like mine, it’s easy to use and soft on the hand; the open head allows you to see the design before you punch…I like that!

You can see in this picture that the circle is not centered, that’s because the “throat” of my punch does not reach further….

…so, we cut again. Note: this is trial and error, so be easy on the trims… 
…until we get to this. Perfect!
or this…I personally prefer the scalloped punch…You’ll see why later…Keep reading!
2. PUNCH:

Once you are absolutely sure that your design is perfectly aligned and centered, punch away!

4. GLUE:

Fire up your glue gun and start gluing the lollipop sticks to the back of your punch out. I use a *very old* cutting mat where I put down my hot glue gun and use the grids as guide. 


Put a 1″ long ‘strip’ of hot glue to your lollipop stick like this:

and then adhere the stick to your punch out:
Pardon the thread of hot glue hanging…Remove any rests of glue…{*blush* }. 
At this point you can be done with your cupcake toppers and they look cute…However, I am going to show you how to add more “pizzaz” to them. Here is when you could use that optional  2.25″ circle punch.
Punch out a 2.25″ circle out of contrasting cardstock. I used white, black and pink for these particular Valentine’s cupcake toppers…
Put another 1″ long ‘strip’ of  hot glue in the back of your semi-done cupcake topper like this:
…and stick it to your punched out 2.25″ circle.
and now you’re done!
If you have ANY questions, I would love to hear from you! 
Thanks so much for looking, sharing, and for all the LOVE! Have a wonderful weekend!

Choo Choo Train Birthday Party – More items added!

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Hello everyone!
This post is an update for the Chugga Chugga Choo Choo Train Party post I wrote back in October ’12.
I honestly wish I had the precious time to post all products at once, but if you are reading this and you work from home and take care of a toddler and of all the house chores, bills and errands…You get me.. 🙂 Anywho, how about some updates on my Train Birthday Party decor ? 

This is the invitation, laid out as a train ticket. It’s so fun!

Here is a shot of the actual invitation printed and ready to ship:

Train Birthday Party Invitation by Posh Paper Parties

Now, we have some other goodies available at the shop. Like the matching Thank You note:

Train Birthday Party Thank You note by Posh Paper Parties

No party is complete without cupcakes. So here you have the matching cupcake toppers for this Choo Choo Train Party.

Train Birthday Party Cupcake Toppers by Posh Paper Parties

And last but not least, the DIY project that all of you have been requesting via email: 2″ Party Circles.

Party circles are so useful, they serve more than one purpose. You can craft stickers, cupcake toppers, favor tags, scrapbook pages, etc. All you need is some imagination and of course some crafty tools.
Train Birthday Party 2″ Party Circles by Posh Paper Parties
For more info on these and more products, visit my Etsy Shop.
Happy Friday everyone! Oh! and come back soon for an awesome tutorial on how to craft your own cupcake toppers with a free downloadable DIY 2″ Valentine’s Day Party Circles and a special Valentine’s day offer from Cricut.
Thanks for stopping by!

DIY Christmas Cupcake Toppers and Gift Tags – Free!

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                                                                                 At Christmas play 

and make good cheer…

for Christmas comes 


but  once a year.


To all my dear readers and followers:  As a token of my appreciation for all your support through 2011 I am sharing this beautiful DIY-Christmas Cupcake Toppers file with all of you! If you need some help on how to make them, you can also download the instructions right here.


Merry Christmas!!