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I have always loved seeing all the cute diaper cakes around blog land and my cute friend Annalisa even made one for a couple of years ago for my cousin’s baby shower. Recently, I decided to try my hand at it for my sister-in-law’s shower. We had some extra diapers from Littlefoot and I thought “Why not?” (even though we could have saved them for our baby).
I looked up tutorials via Google and Youtube and found several. But none of them were exactly what I was looking for. But they did give me a starting off point. First, I found newborn and size 1 diapers. And I bought some elastic bands in various sizes. I decided I wanted to roll each diaper-starting from the “open” end, I rolled each one up and secured with a rubber band. Sounds time consuming but it actually went pretty quick. I rolled all of the diapers first (while watching my favorite movie during nap time).
Then, I started on the tiers. At one point, I did count each tier but I forgot because I ended up adding some and then forgot until after I wrapped it up. Anyway, I do know that I used seven diapers for the top. For the middle layer, I started with a grouping of seven, secured it, and then added another circle around it, secured it, and added another circle of diapers and secured it. I did the same with the bottom layer (I think I added another four circles for the bottom). Basically, I just eyed the cake after adding diaper circles until it looked the way I wanted it to.
Next, I had to decide what I wanted to do about wrapping the layers. Some cakes have the diapers showing and that’s what I originally planned on doing. And then I would add the ribbon and embellishments to them. I tried it without permanently securing anything and decided I didn’t like how it looked. Thankfully, I had a roll of kraft paper lying around and so I grabbed it and carefully wrapped each layer. I used glue dots to secure the paper down (it was a little tricky but I covered the tiers like you would fondant on a cake). But, the kraft paper wrinkled when I was finished and I didn’t like it on its own either! So, I grabbed the receiving blankets I had bought as an additional gift and wrapped the blankets around the sides of each tier. It didn’t wrap all the way around the bottom layers sides, so I wrapped the bottom the same way I did the same way I did the kraft paper-from the top and then secured the bottom. Finally, I added the embellishments-some cute ribbon, stickers, washcloths, toy, bath essentials, and wipes. I set it all up on a piece of cardboard that I also wrapped in a receiving blanket. All in all, I used about two and half packages of diapers.
I really love how it turned out. It was a little tricky getting it to the house for the shower and inside, but we made it! In hindsight, I’d probably use dowels or something to secure the layers together better. And the best thing about it is that everything was reusable! Even the ribbon and stickers 🙂