DIY Skeleton Flamingo Cake Toppers

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Woohoo! Today I’m showing how to do another Halloween DIY project with your Cricut Explore™ to decorate for Halloween! As part of the Cricut Design Space Star Challenge, I am a member of a team of talented bloggers and each month we choose a theme and create a project based on that theme. This month our theme is Skull and Bones and today I’m sharing my Skeleton Flamingos. They are perfect for cake toppers, cupcake toppers, or even cut out HUGE for your front yard!Before we dive into the project, let’s chat for a hot minute about the Cricut Explore™.  Did you know that with the Cricut Explore™, you can upload YOUR OWN DESIGNS! So cool right? And, the Cricut Explore™ can cut so many different types of materials including paper, card stock, felt, fabric, metal, and wood! Check out the Cricut Explore Cut List here. So no more endless cut outs with scissors or exacto knives!

Ok, so let’s get started making these flamingos. You’re going to need a few materials.

Materials Needed:

• Cricut Explore™
• Cricut Weeding Tool
• 1 12×12 sheet of card stock – black, gold, pink, your choice!
• Toothpicks or small dowels
• Tacky Glue
• One-Legged Skeleton Flamingo SVG file (FREE DOWNLOAD!)
• Two-Legged Skeleton Flamingo SVG File (FREE DOWNLOAD!)

 Optional Materials:

• 1 12×12 sheet of card stock (in case of any mistakes)
• 1 12×12 sheet of chipboard or wood veneer, stakes, and Rustoleum’s Never Wet if you would like to make these into yard decor.
• Cricut Tools Scraper – This would have helped clean up and save time. Wish I had one!

Instructions: I designed my flamingos in Photoshop, exported them to Illustrator, and made SVG files, meaning they are vectorized files and you can make them as big or as small as you want (but not too small, those little bird bones are tiny!). Do you recognize the flamingo? It’s my logo!

Step 1: In Cricut Design Space, simply start a new project, then click “Upload Image”, click “Vector Upload”, browse and choose your downloaded skeleton flamingo files, and click “Save Image”. Repeat the steps to upload the second flamingo. The two flamingos will then be at the bottom of your screen, click on both of them, giving both a green checkmark, and click “Insert Images.”

Step 2: Remember how I said these are SVG files? Well, you can make them any size you would like. 4×6? Done. 5×7? Boom! 10×12? Okay! The only limitation is your Cricut mat. So go ahead and scale the flamingos to the size you want them to be.

Step 3: Once you have the images at the sizes you want, click the green GO button, change the “How many projects do you want to make?” to as many flamingos as you want, and then follow the instructions to load the mat and then let the Cricut do all your dirty work cutting!

Step 4: Once the Cricut is done, remove the mat from the machine and CAREFULLY remove the paper from the mat. Be VERY careful around the neck and leg areas as the paper gets a little thin there. Use the Cricut Weeder tool if you need to in order to get under the paper and help it off the mat.

Step 5: Use the Cricut Weeder Tool to remove any of the paper that you do not want. You will probably have some cuts in the body that need to be helped out.

Step 6: Attach toothpicks or small dowels with tacky glue, let dry, and stick in the top of your cake or cupcakes!

Optional Step 7: Or cut out the legless flamingo bodies (grab the files without the legs here and here – FREE DOWNLOAD) as big as you can on chipboard or wood veneer, add two stakes as legs, spray paint black, let dry, then spray with Rustoleum’s Never Wet, and stick them in the front yard as kitschy, Halloween yard art! (Just try to keep them out of the sprinklers.)

Don’t have a Cricut yet? Well, what are you waiting for? Go get one so you can make these awesome cake toppers for your Halloween party!

And if you haven’t yet purchased a Cricut Explore (and really, why haven’t you?) don’t forget to use coupon code HALLOWEEN31 for FREE SHIPPING on orders of $31+.

And be sure to check back tomorrow for another bird-themed, DIY, Halloween craft project!

Disclaimer: I’ve been invited to work with Cricut. For my participation in Cricut’s Design Space Star competition, Provo Craft & Novelty, Inc. gave me a Cricut Explore. The Cricut Explore and access to Cricut’s Design Space featured in this post has been provided by them, but the ideas and opinions here are all my own. I am a member of the Cricut Blogger Network. I may receive prizes in exchange for my winning projects. (Fingers crossed!) Even though I am not being directly compensated for these posts, I am under consideration for a prize with Cricut Design Space Star™.

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