Well, who doesn’t love cupcakes. And with a holiday season fast approaching, I bet that a lot of you want to decorate your cupcakes with some occasional festive toppers. So, I will show you the easiest way I know to make them in Photoshop. And, at the end of this tutorial you can download the .psd file with a cupcake topper made here.

The most common size of a cupcake topper is 2 inches, so I will be making them that size. When you print them out, you can use scissors or paper punch to cut them out.

I will be making two versions of them in Photoshop: square ones and circle ones. Square ones are great if you want to make a decorative edge with a scallop punch, for instance.

Let’s begin!
(For a larger view click on the images.)

1. Create a new document and make it 2“ x 2“, 300 ppi (600 x 600 px).

2. With a black color as your Foreground Color go to Ellipse Tool. Make a new layer and name it Outside Circle. With a Shift pressed make a circle 600 px in diameter (so it fits perfectly in that document). If you want to make sure it’s centered, go to Select > All, and than with the Outside Circle layer and a Move Tool selected go to Align vertical centers and Align horizontal centers.

3. Duplicate the Outside Circle layer by right clicking on it and choosing Duplicate Layer and name it Inside Circle. Make that inside circle white so you can see it better. Just click twice on the layer thumbnail and the Color Picker will appear.

4. With the Inside Circle layer selected (it’s blue) go to Edit > Free Transform Path (Ctrl+T) and with holding Shift and Alt Keys reduce the size of that inside circle to your liking. I made mine 75% of the original size.

5. And now the fun starts! Double click on the Outside Circle layer to open Layer Style window. Go to Pattern Overlay and choose a pattern for your border. I chose my Christmas Colors Patterns because I wanted to make holiday cupcake toppers. You can download them for free HERE.
If you are not sure how to install and use Photoshop patterns you can check out my quick tutorial: How To Install Patterns In Photoshop
You can use any pattern you wish or you can fill it with solid color.

If you have a pattern like this (stripes) and you can not see the whole outer line (for cutting the topper out), I recommend making a light inside stroke. Again double click on the Outside Circle layer to open Layer Style window. Go to Stroke, position Inside. I made mine green, size 3 px, but you can make it thicker.

6. For the Inside Circle, I left it white. You can add an inside border on the Inside Circle the same way you did it on the Outside Circle for more crisp look.

7. Now we are going to fill inside circle with a greeting or an image. I used free font called What we do all day to write Merry Christmas, and my very own Christmas Doodles Brushes for the embellishment.

To do that, first make a new layer above the Inside Circle layer and name it Greeting. Pick Horizontal Type Tool, select the font you like, and write your greeting in the center of your topper.

8. Now we can add some Christmas doodles! Make a new layer on top and name it Doodles. Load Christmas Doodles Brushes or any other Photoshop brush set you want to use.
Loading brushes: Select Brush Tool and click on that arrow beside the brush size. Then click on the little „flower“ on the right side of that new window and choose Load Brushes… Then choose your brush inside the brush menu and… have fun!

Here is your 2 inches wide Christmas cupcake topper!

9. If you want your topper square, first turn off the Outside Circle layer (click on the eye beside the layer to turn off its visibility). With the Background layer selected go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Pattern. Choose your Pattern Fill and that’s it!

Don’t forget to play around and have fun with different designs!

10. Now you just need to save them as .jpg or .png, insert them into Word document and print them out! Be careful with the margins because most of home printers don’t print all the way to the edge.

To download cupcake toppers (.jpg) made in this tutorial click on the image and choose the download icon ↓

To download psd file click on the download button below.

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