Tuesday, May 15, 2012

DIY: How to make a diaper cake



Diaper cakes make great centerpieces for baby showers as well as amazing and elegant gifts for the expecting parents. Sure you can go out and buy one, but it's even more personal if you make them yourself. It's a gift that keeps giving!

I know that making your own can seem overwhelming and very time consuming, but it doesn't have to be!
I made the diaper cake shown above in about 4 hours and spent about $55-$60 to make it and I am going to show you how!

Things you will need:
Diapers
Rubber bands
Wooden dowels
hot glue  or fabric glue
ribbon
decoration items
Cake topper
cardboard or something to place the diaper cake on.


Choosing diapers and decoration items:
 More often than not you will want to go with larger sized diapers  ( usually sizes 3 or 4) so that the parents can enjoy the diaper cake longer, plus the parents to be normally have the smaller sizes already so you want to get them something they can use. Feel free to ask the parents to be what size(s) they need  though.

For Decorational items you can do a simple pink or blue cake OR you can do something based on the shower theme or the baby's room theme.  It's really up to you and what your preferences are.  You can use toys,  bottles, combs, pacifiers and much more for decorations.


What I used:
For this cake I mixed two themes: Winnie the Pooh and football. I chose newborn diapers because the expecting parents didn't have any of those yet.  They were doing the pooh theme so  grabbed a stuffed pooh toy for the topper and grabbed football pacifiers and boy themed pacifier holders
I used red, yellow, and football ribbon. 



Getting Started!

Rolling the diapers
 The bigger  you want your cake to be, the more diapers you will need.
(I used a complete box of 96 newborn size diapers for the cake above.which is 4 tiers)


You will want to start with the end that opens ( see above)


and roll it inwards towards the closed end.


 Once you have it rolled up you will place a rubber band around it to hold it in position.  You want the rubber band to be in the center of the diaper.


 You will do this for all of the diapers.


Forming the tiers of the cake 

 

My cake  had a total of four tiers using 96 newborn diapers. 
(the pic above shows all but the top tier)
 
Bottom tier- There were a total of 63 diapers in my bottom tier.
I stated with 1 in the center and surrounded it by 7 diapers forming a circle.
You may need a helper to help hold the diapers in place as you are standing them in place so that they don't fall. Once I had 7 around it I placed a rubber band around them all to help hold them in place. Then I placed 13 around that, placing a rubber band around that layer as well.  Once I had that done I placed another layer of 19 around those and held it together with a rubber band and then 23 diapers were placed around that to form the last layer for the bottom tier.

NOTES: Each layer was held together by a rubber band.  Some layers actually had two ( the 3rd and 4th layer on the bottom tier) rubber bands holding it together to make it more sturdy. You want the layer rubber band to  lay on top of the rubber band that is holding  the rolled up diaper in place ( see the pic above - all the rubber bands kinda make one circle instead of being all over the place)
Also, you want to use different sized rubber bands as the larger layers will need bigger rubberbands. You don't want them to snap as you are putting them on or even on the parents to be as they are taking it apart to use the diapers.

3rd tier- My third tier has a total of 21 diapers. I started with 1 in the center and surrounded it by 7 and placed a rubber band around them. I then added another 13 around it  and placed a rubber band to complete my 3rd tier.

2nd tier- My second tier  has a total of 8 diapers. I started with 1 diaper and then placed 7 around it , placing a rubber band around them all to hold them together.

top tier-  The top tier has a total of 4 diapers. I gathered them together and placed a rubber band around them.

 
Notes: To keep the cake looking smooth, make sure the diaper is facing inwards. you don't want the  closed end of the diaper showing  when you look at the cake so you may need to turn some of the diapers to show the smooth side rather than the closed end of the diaper.  You can also see the pic below to see how I kept all the ends of the diapers tucked inwards

Forming the cake:

( top view showing the wooden dowels in place)
 Of course you place the tiers on top of each other, but to help keep it sturdy and keep the tiers from falling off each other you gently place 2 wooden dowel in the center of the bottom tier. 

(side view showing the wooden dowels  sticking out of the top of the 2nd tier)
You want to make sure the dowel goes around the center diaper and that you don't puncture any of the diapers.  You will want the dowel to go through each layer in the diaper cake so that it helps hold the layers together. See the pics above for reference.
Also the dowels I used weren't long enough to fully go through the top tier which was perfect because you don't want them to stick out of the top of your cake  and also because they still went partially through the top tier to hold it in place.

Decorating the cake:


 You don't want the rubber bands to show, so you will cover them with ribbon. You don't want to be able to see the rubber bands through the ribbon so make sure to choose ribbon that will fully cover them.

I took red ribbon and made a yellow stripe down the center of it using smaller yellow ribbon. I wanted this to match the Winnie the pooh theme. I placed this around each tier using hot glue to seal the ribbon together on each layer. 
 I then made two bows out of football ribbon and attached them to the top tier and the 3rd tier. ( you can add bows to each layer, but I didn't want a lot of bows because it's for a boy)
I then placed pacifiers on one side of the football bow on the 3rd tier and placed the pacifier holders on the other side.  ( you can attach these with ribbon or any other way if you would like, I just placed them on the side.Some even like to place them in the ribbon around the tiers.)
I then added my pooh topper to complete the diaper cake.


Once you have mastered the basic diaper cake, you can try new and exciting shapes. I have seen bassinets made of diapers, tricycles, etc.  It's all about having fun!
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5 comments:

Katrina Mitchell said...

For rolling the single diapers, the tiny rubber bands for you hair work great.  You can stretch them pretty far and they will still hold the diaper.  Much easier to get on and off than a larger rubber band that will have to go around the diaper more than once.

thischattanoogamommysaves said...

 Hmm I had never thought of doing that... Nice point!

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