DIY Cupcake Wrapper Tutorial using MS Word

     When my baby’s first birthday was just a few months away I started to summon my crafty side to put together a little party. To save some money I decided to make some cupcakes my self and decorate them with some cute wrappers and toppers. So this mom on a mission started to look for some free templates online that I could customize to create my wrappers with the theme that we picked (cute superheroes). All the free templates were either blank printable PDF that were the wrong size or shape or you needed some expensive software or machine to create them.

    They say that boredom is the mother of invention; well I say frustration is its cousin, so I decided to make my own template that I could use and customize for EVERY occasion until the day I die. I used MS Word to create my templates, and btw there’s sooooo much stuff you can create with it and save so much money. That’s one of the reasons love it!

    Below are the steps for how I created my template. I used MS Word for Mac version 16.16.3 so it might look a little different if you have a different version but in essence is the same steps. I recommend to save a copy of the template after you create it just in case you accidentally change something, that way you don’t have to start from zero. You can use card stock paper or some glossy paper to print it out so it can really showcase your design. At the end there’s a video of the steps as I make the wrappers so It’ll give you a more visual idea of the process. Enjoy!

Cupcake Wrapper steps:

1. Open MS word and set up your document.

On the Layout tab,

   a. Choose Orientation, Landscape.

   b. Set up the Custom Margins to: 1″, 1.31″, 0.94″, 1.1″, 0″

                     (margins are for drawing purposes, adjust margins if needed before printing)

2.  On the Insert tab, select Shape and pick the Block Arc.

3. Click anywhere in the page and drag to draw the shape.

4. Click on the image and select Shape Format to enter size dimensions. Check the box to lock aspect ratio.

5. Right click on the shape and select More Layout options, then change the values for the horizontal absolute position and vertical absolute position as shown below. (-0.26″, 0″)

6.  Right click on the shape and go to the Format Shape option. Go to the Fill option and select none.

7.  On the View tab, check the Gridlines box.

8. Go to the Layout tab, click on the Align button and choose Grid Settings and on the Show Grid section enter 3 for both the Vertical and Horizontal values then click ok.

At this point your document should look something like this:

9.  Now click on the shape and select to yellow edit point on the right bottom inner end of the shape. * Make sure to NOT move the yellow point on the left side of the shape at this moment.

10.  Drag the yellow point up and to the left a little (this will move the shape in the horizontal and vertical direction) until the bottom line in the center is just a tiny bit below the 4^th square and the corners are in the following positions:

11.  Now where going to set up the left side of the shape. Pick the yellow edit button on the left and drag it up until the outside corner touches the grid line on block number 8. This edit point will only move the shape inward or outward without affecting the height of the shape.

The end result should look something like this:

    Now that you have your shape, copy and paste it below so you don’t have to start over once you start editing the shape. You can now remove the grid line view and adjust the margins to make sure the shape is not going to get cut off when you print it.

    For your cupcake toppers, the only thing you’ll need is create a circle shape and adjust its dimensions to 2”x 2”. Then you can edit the background, color, line style, add text, etc.  You can also use decorative edge scissors for the top part to get that custom look. Please comment below for any questions or feedback.

Here are the superhero wrappers and toppers I made for my baby’s birthday party…