Lately I've noticed that some of my craftiest customers have been hand-painting white paper party…

Making gum paste cupcake toppers is not so difficult once you learn a few basic techniques. Marcella of Just Sugar Coat It is here today to teach us how to make these cute jack o’lantern cupcake toppers. They’re a great project for beginners because they’re made from pretty basic shapes! Here are the materials you need to get started:

Workboard
Flower veining tool
X-acto knife
Gum paste
Toothpick
Color Gel Paste in orange, forest green, and super black
Corn syrup or water (this acts as glue to hold the gum paste together)

Instructions
Color a gum paste ball using colored gel paste from the tip of a toothpick. Shape the orange paste into a ball and pinch off a tiny amount for the nose.
Use the flower veining tool to texture the segments, then push in the top of the pumpkin to give a flattened look.
Use the veining tool to texture the wiggly mouth.
Shape the nose into a cone and bend it into a hook using the veining tool. Attach it with edible glue. Make large triangular sockets for the eyes.

Push small balls of white paste into the eye sockets.

Push a small ball of black paste into the corner of each eye for the pupils.

Shape a tooth and attach with edible glue.
Make the pumpkin stalk using the green paste and the flower veining tool to texture the sides.
Use offcuts to make tendrils by modeling “worms” of paste and smoothing them in the palm of your hand to form coils. Fix with edible glue.

And there you have it, an adorable pumpkin topper that you can use to decorate your Halloween cupcakes!

Marcella was so sweet, while she was working on the jack o’lantern topper tutorial, she also snapped a few photos of her cupcakes decorated with my Halloween printables set! These are printable circles that she mounted on lollipop sticks. Paper cupcake toppers are so easy to make and they look nice when you mix and match them with gum paste toppers:

The cupcakes look especially adorable sitting on their little individual cupcake stands, too. : )
Thank you so much to Marcella of Just Sugar Coat It for sharing her tutorial with us!
