How to Make a Letter Wedding Cake Topper

Knowing that I build all kinds of artsy things, a friend asked me to create a simple wooden wedding cake topper for her wedding cake. She wanted an elegant looking wood "D". This is how I made mine!

Materials

- sheet of wood. The thinner the better- Maybe5 mm thickness.

- dremel with sander AND wood saw attachment

-sandpaper

-mini files

-wood stain

- super glue

-exacto knife

-drill bit

-Clear coat spray

1.First, I find out how wide is the diameter of the top tier for their cake. Then, I ask how tall the cake it going to be. The reason is, i want the cake topper to be in proportion to the actual cake. This way, you can decide how tall and how wide you want the topper to be. You don't want a tiny cake topper, nor do you want a giant topper that is equal to the size of the cake!

2. Pic out your font and pic out your wood. (pic 1 + 2)

3. Based on how tall you want to topper to be, can either print and cut out the letter to use as a stencil or sketch it out onto the board. If you find it easier, draw a rectangle on your board that is the size of your cake topper. Then you can draw the letter inside it so make sure it fits in the parameters. (pic 3)

1. Now that you have the letter drawn on your board, use your cutting tool to remove the wood you don't need. ALWAYS start from the center and go out. The reason for this is that as you cut more and more wood away, the piece becomes more delicate and can break easily.

2. I used a wood attachment to my dremel to chop off the major parts of the letter.I sometimes had to use a drill bit to start in certain areas of the letter. In really small touch spots, i used an exacto knife to whittle away the wood until i could my large and small sanding attachments and/or files to smooth out the edges.

1. For your Base, Use the same wood and either use a compass of something round (saucer, bowl, etc) to measure, based on the diameter of that top cake tier.

2. If you had an electric sander, you could just sand this bad boy down to the size you needed. But if you don't, you may have to do the painstaking method of chopping and sanding it down.

3.Once you have your letter and your base, Take your sandpaper and give it a good, but gentle sanding. You want to make sure any wood fibers are taken off.

4. Next, select you wood stain and go to town. Paint with the grain of the wood.

5. Once completely dry, you can attach the letter with some superglue, a tiny nail, or screw. In a pinch, you can add a little piece of wood to the back of the letter to use as a post for it to stick to.

Lastly step is to take some clear coat and spray the piece just to give it a layer of protection.

*I Personally do this at least 24 hours before it needs to sit on top of that cake, just so everything is fully dry and there are not fumes of any sort from the topper.

*In the event that the topper is too heavy, you can stick a few sticks or columns of some sort in the top cake tier itself to provide it with a little bit more stability.

Enjoy and Happy weddings everyone!

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