Simple & Classy Diaper Cakes

Babies. Babies. Babies.

I'm telling you, there must be something in the water around here! First there was my friend Kari, then Melissa, you can't forget me, and now we have another friend who is due! Thaveshni's sister and Melissa organized her recent baby shower. They asked me to make diaper cakes for table decorations and instructed me on the colors and theme - brown & green with zoo animals.

I combined a variety of resources to create the diaper cakes. These included talking with friends, an old Kinder Kakes instruction booklet from a friend's mom, Pinterest, and good ol' Google.  All I knew for certain was that I wanted the diapers hidden. I didn't want it to scream BABY. I was going for a classy diaper cake (I know, not a useful description).

I found this tutorial the most helpful.

Many of the tutorials online require two people to complete the diaper cake. This was not in the cards for me. So I improvised and was able to make two smaller cakes all by my pregnant self. Here's how I did it:

Step 1:

Begin with a concept in order to determine the materials you will need. (My severe lack of artistic ability cracks me up.)

Step 2:

Gather your materials. I used the following (most of my supplies were purchased at Michael's):

- box of newborn diapers (purchased from mom-to-be's registry)

- a gazillion rubberbands

- two paper towel tubes

- tape

- white tissue paper

- wide white satin ribbon, without wire

- colorful ribbon

- brown scrapbook paper

- baker's twine

- bamboo sticks

- burlap

Step 3:

Roll each tiny diaper and secure with a rubber band.

Step 4:

Begin at the base of your paper towel tube and secure the rolled diapers with a rubber band.

Step 5:

Add a second layer of diapers to the base of your cake, secured by another rubber band. 

Tip: I placed the rubber band around first, and then slipped the diapers under one at a time.

I then repeated the process for my second cake.

Step 6:

Take 1 or 2 pieces of tissue paper (depending on coverage you're intending) and fold into a square. 

Cut the corner off of the square.

Step 7:

Unfold the paper and place over your diaper cake. Cut off access paper and secure by taping to the bottom of the diaper cake. The sides will be covered with white ribbon later, so it doesn't need to be pretty.

This layer works to hide the diapers and provides a clean slate for the rest of the project. 

Step 8: 

Add another tier of diapers.

Step 9:

Cover your top tier with tissue paper  & secure with tape (no need to cut a hole).

Step 10:

Add ribbon to the sides only & secure with tape. Think of this as the fondant on a cake.

I needed two layers of ribbon to completely cover the sides of my cake.

As you can see below, I taped the ribbon to the very top of the cake. I didn't like that look, but couldn't undo it. So I left it untaped on the second cake.

Step 11:

Add decorative ribbon around the middle & secure with tape.

Step 12:

Now that your base is complete, you can get really creative!

I looked for inspiration from actual cakes. I thought that a little pennant banner would be cute on top.

I just shoved the bamboo sticks down into the diaper cake (no additional securing needed), and cut triangles from the burlap. I used a large-eyed needle to attach the triangles to my baker's twine & tied the twine onto the bamboo. 

Step 13:

I incorporated the zoo animal theme by adding silhouettes onto the cake. Google images was instrumental in finding specific animal silhouettes.

I printed the image, cut it out, traced it onto my brown scrapbook paper, and then cut out the final image. Tape was all I used to keep the animals in place on the cake.

You're done!

I'll admit, this isn't a quick project. It took me a couple of days with lots of breaks. The hardest part for me was deciding on what I actually wanted the final product to look like. Speaking of final product...

And just for fun, a picture of my constant helpers...baby and the beast.

Have you made a diaper cake before? What other tricks have you learned?

What additional methods would you use to incorporate the party theme?

Follow along with my DIY adventures. 

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This week I'm linking to some of the parties found here.