Baby Shower Gift: A Diaper Cake

So, it’s coming to that point of life where a lot of my friends have babies, or are having babies, or are talking about having babies.

I’m nowhere near that point, but I still have to participate in these parties called “baby showers” where we celebrate that someone  is cooking a little person in their uterus. I’m always a lot more excited about babies when they’re actually born, but horay for baby showers!

All contempt and slight jealousy aside, I had a little bit of fun shopping for and making this diaper cake for my friend’s baby shower tomorrow. My mom has been making these for a few years now and I figured it’s a cute and relatively inexpensive (this cost me about $40 total) gift for a baby shower.

I’m no expert (my Mom informed me that she lays the diapers flat instead of rolling each one), but here’s how you do it:

What you Need for a Diaper Cake

• A large pack of diapers

I used LUVS Size 2, 100ct.  You can never be sure what size the baby is going to be when it’s born, and many of my friends who have already had kids mentioned that their babies grew out of the newborn diapers quickly. Pampers are supposedly the best. And you can get them for cheap on Amazon or at Target. I bought mine at Target and they were $17.99. You can use multiple sizes but I opted just for the one, because I’m on a budget.

• Rubber Bands

Buy a big pack of them. Again, I went to Target and got a tin of 600 of them, it was only $2

• Ribbon

This will be used to hold the layers in, get a thick kind. I just used some ribbon I had sitting around.

• A baby toy (appropriate for the first year of life)
• Some Onesies or cute shirts
• A bib
• some baby socks or shoes
• a topper (I used a snow globe)
• a cake plate (the thick kind), or a heavy piece of cardboard for the bottom of the cake

How to Make A Diaper Cake

Take one diaper and roll it up, starting at the open end.

Take a small rubber band and wrap it around that diaper
Repeat with the 100 other diapers (you can get away without doing this, but the cake won’t be as tightly wrapped
Take a larger elastic band, and place 7 diapers inside of it, to form the top layer of the cake

Take another large elastic band and put about 15 diapers inside of it, to form the middle layer of the cake
Take another large elastic band and put about 20-25 diapers inside of it (or more if you can fit them), to form the bottom layer of the cake
Cut the cardboard to make a circle that fits the bottom of your cake, place the bottom layer on top of it

Take out one or two of the diapers from the bottom layer, and hide some of the little gifts inside (you can roll up a onesie to be the same size as the diapers)
Put the second layer on top, replace another diaper with a small gift
Place the top layer on
Take the ribbon and wrap around the outside of the bottom layer, covering the elastic band. You can tape it on, or tie it

You can see how the ribbon i ssupposed to go over the elastic band to hide it and make it look cuter. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to make this toy stay on well, so I taped it. The little ducky thing is another onesie that I rolled up and attached to the cake

Do the same for the remaining layers
Any other little gifts you have can be tucked in or taped on the outside of the cake

I found these cute little racing booties and hooked the bag right on one of the diapers so it kind of dangles off the side of the cake

Place the topper on top (if you have to remove a diaper to kind of stick it in you can)
Wrap with cellophane and tie with a bow on top (I haven’t done this yet on mine, but that’s what I plan to do)

This was about 3 hours of work, so while it’s simple, make sure to give yourself enough time!