How I Made a Diaper Cake

For the baby shower I co-hosted, my mom and I made a diaper cake which was something I had always wanted to do. Here's a step by step tutorial on how we did it!

We bought three different sizes of diapers. How many you purchase will depend on how big you want the cake to be. Since we made each tier a different size, we did have a lot of leftover diapers, which we gifted to the mom-to-be. 

You'll need:

• Diapers
• Tray or base
• Rubber bands, enough for each diaper
• Bottle/center item to build around
• Ribbon
• Ties, clips, a way to attached items to the diapers
• "Decorations"

All kid diapers have some kind of licensed character on them. We bought Pampers and they have Sesame Street, which is cute, but you don't want all those colors showing on the cake. 

So, first thing, fold over the top opening of the diaper to hide the picture.

Then roll the diaper up from the bottom.

Mom in action!

When you've rolled it all the way up. . .

Secure with a rubber band

You don't need to do this, but I made a pyramid of diapers =)

We made a base from two piece of a cardboard box covered in tissue paper, but feel free to buy a base or a tray - whatever you want to use that will be sturdy enough to hold the center, diapers and adornments.

We hot glued the two pieces of cardboard together and then taped the tissue paper down on the bottom.

You can use whatever you want for the center - baby shampoo, wash, lotion or a bottle of something for the mom. Some people don't put an object in the center, but I found it easier to build around something. Since my friend likes wine and obviously hasn't had any for awhile, I chose a post pregnancy/post breast feeding treat of a bottle of merlot.

Place your bottle in the middle of the base.

We used size 2 diapers for the base, since they were the biggest and surrounded the bottle with a row of diapers, then secured it with string. You don't have to secure it row, but I didn't want them shifting.

We built three rows for the bottom tier and secured it all together with ribbon.

For the second tier we used size 1 diapers and newborn for the top tier.

To go along with our safari animal theme, we used green ribbon with monkeys to hide the rubber bands and string.

Wrap the pretty ribbon around each tier.

We used hot glue to secure the ribbon - be careful, don't burn your fingers.

Then you can decorate the cake! I got creative with ways to hang things off the ribbon and diapers from pacifier clips to paper clips to safety pins to just sticking the tag of the item inside a diaper until it stayed =)

I used toys, a soft book, bibs, socks, pacifiers and the cutest little dog booties to decorate the "cake".

I also used twisty ties to secure some items, like the pacifiers.

I suggest a cute floppy stuffed animal for the top. I chose a monkey to match the monkey ribbon.

Side view

Other side view.

The final project again.

Making this diaper cake was really quite easy and not as time consuming as I originally thought. It makes a really cute shower decoration that the mom can use!

 

What do you think?