diaper cakes

I've been wanting to try my hand at making a diaper cake ever since I saw one on Pinterest a few months ago.  Well, tonight was the perfect opportunity!  My sister-in-law Jordan is about to have her 3rd baby in February, and so all her friends got together for a surprise "Sprinkle" party for her.  Since it's their 3rd baby, they basically have all the baby items they need. So instead of having a baby shower, it's just a 'sprinkle' of gifts at this point....mainly, diapers and wipes!  Like I said, perfect occasion for a diaper cake.

Now, I pretty much just figured this out as I went based on pictures I found of various diaper cakes.  So, I'm sorry if my instructions are not the clearest.  Here is what you need....

Lots of these!

Actually, I only used about 60 diapers for my cake.  The supplies vary depending on how big you want the cake to be, what you want to use to decorated it, etc. etc. So in addition to diapers, I used rubber bands, ribbon, some safety pins, tape, 3 wooden dowels and a cake stand.

Start out by rolling some diapers up and binding them with a rubber band to help create a circular center.  Each layer will get smaller and smaller, but ironically I actually worked my way backwards.  I started with a small layer and then made each layer bigger and bigger.

So here's my first center section. And then I went around the center portion layering diapers sideways to avoid warping all the diapers into small spools. I had to use tape as I went to help hold the diapers together, but then I removed the tape once I got a large rubber band around the whole layer.

When each layer was complete, it looked like this...

My smallest layer had 4 "spooled" diapers in the center, the middle layer had 10, and the base layer had 13.  Then they all had the flat diapers around the center portion.

I wrapped my ribbon around each layer.  The ribbon on the top and bottom layer I left thick, and pinned the ends together with a safety pin.  I folded the middle layer's ribbon in half and tied it into a knot for a skinnier look.

 

I stacked the layers and ran wooden dowels down the center to hold them together.  Then I topped the cake with a sign for baby Cate!  And that's it!

For a quick little project, I was pleased with the final product.  Now we just need baby Cate to get here! :)