make - wedding cake topper

This past August my beloved younger sister got married.  Prior to the wedding, she asked me if I could help design and create some signature pieces. One of these pieces was a wedding cake topper. 

The wedding's theme was bright, rustic, and cheerful.  We created the mood using yellow sunflowers, natural wheat, and by adding cheerful elements like birds into the mix.

Cake toppers can be expensive, but even if it's something custom, they don't have to be, you can make these yourself! Some cake toppers are made from conventional materials like ceramic or sugar paste, however your cake topper doesn't have to be edible or washable, in fact you can't even eat most sugar paste flowers because they have no taste, are hard and have wires in them. 

While you can use sugar paste, due to lack of experience, I use a wonderful, non-toxic Crayola product called: Model Magic  http://www.crayola.com/things-to-do/how-to-landing/model-magic.aspx

This modeling compound comes in a variety of colours,  is lightweight, is easy to form, air-dries and can be painted when dry.  Another product I use is small bottle form acrylic paint found in any local craft store.  The consistency of this paint is flat and the colours are opaque. Don't use the expensive metallic tube acrylic paints as this paint has a thicker texture, and dries translucent.

To make a cake topper, first find an image of the type of topper you would like to have.  My sister chose a fabric cake topper like the one below:

Next, decide what other materials you will need.  For my topper I used:

• Crayola, Model Magic in white
• acrylic paint
• crystal gems
• small hot glue gun
• hot glue sticks
• large toothpicks
• white lace ribbon
• black ribbon
• black and white felt
• card stock
• small pins (used for the eyes)
• raffia

To make my topper I first glued large toothpicks together to form the skeleton and support of the body. Next, I formed the modeling compound around the toothpicks until it reached the shape I desired. I let the compound dry for 24 hours. 

Once the compound had dried, I made a small hat for the groom bird out of card stock (which I later painted black), and a lace ribbon headpiece for the bride bird.  I glued these items onto the bird bodies with a hot glue gun.  I prefer using a hot glue gun because it bonds things quickly end effectively, however please be careful!

Using felt and ribbon that I purchased from a craft store, I proceeded to create little outfits: a felt jacket and tail for the groom and lace wings and tail for the bride bird. I rolled paper into small beaks, painted these a dusty pink-orange colour and glued them onto the face of the birds.  I cut 4 pins and inserted them into the face to form the eyes.  I lightly painted the birds an off-white and painted the head of the pins (where the eyes are) black.  I made a small rose out of paper for the groom and a ribbon necklace adorned with clear crystals for the bride bird. I attached all these items with a glue gun. I created a base out of the same modeling compound, and once this had dried I hot-glued the toothpick feet of the birds into the base.  As a finishing touch, I wrapped raffia around the base to make the birds look as it they are sitting in a nest.

My sister loved the finished product, and her wedding cake was simply charming  :)