The baby shower was a SUCCESS! Did I mention it was the first ever baby shower I hosted? I was stressed out to the nine because we had to plan it so soon. One of the planners is moving next month and we all had to plan around our vacations. Considering all of that I think it turned out really well! I'll add another post later with more info on the games we played, more pictures of friends and everything, but this post I wanted to dedicate to my gift to her... A diaper cake.
You may remember the first one I made...
Lopsided.
And the stand was pretty lame (actually I did cut it in a circle later I didn't hand it to her like that!). I think the problem I had was the fact that I stacked all of the diapers on one another and didn't have a solid base in between them. With this one I read a diaper cake tutorial online that helped. And I'm going to post my own version here for you all to see! I wanted to do a video blog but I was in too much of a hurry, so I hope this helps!
First, don't be like me. I went to Hobby Lobby and pranced around the ribbon section for a long time trying to decide which color I wanted. If you were on Twitter at that time you were probably one of the people who helped me-THANK YOU! My husband was waiting in the car and after (I'm embarrassed to say)... A half hour!! ..He came storming in looking for me! Luckily I had narrowed it down to this color.
Heidi (my friend) didn't want "pink" and the theme in her baby's room is "tropical sunset" so I went with orange ribbon. You'll see what this is for soon.
Next I bought flowers for the topper... Some people use stuffed animals, but I had a vision in mind and flowers fit into that better.
I found this for a dollar and thought it could make a nice touch. I didn't know how I'd fit it all in at the time but I just planned to figure it out from home.
Next I bought a tall (about a foot) cardboard cylinder (maybe 4-6in around) to use to make a stand. I also bought a big piece of cardboard (about $1.50) to use as the base.
Then finally, yes, I bought diapers. Some friends on Twitter told me the Pampers Swaddlers are best cause they're all white, but I think any kind works. Someone told me they've made one with cloth diapers, which would be cool but WAY more expensive! These kind were soft but a little pricier than the other disposables ($9.90 for a box of 40 sz1) I ended up having to send my husband out to buy another bag (and to be honest I'm surprised he found the right ones), but I only used about 10 out of the second bag... So about 50 for me, total.
Now to making it... First I rolled up all of the diapers. I bought a 200 box of clear headbands for $2. I rolled up the diapers. You can do it either way, but I try to keep the size with print on the inside.
I cut out circles for the base, I used a large dinner plate then a smaller salad plate and then a bowl for my sizes.
I covered the circles with tissue paper, so if it shows at all it's white.
I cut the cylinder thing into two diaper-height cylinders. Then I glued it onto the cardboard circles. I put the bottom and middle layer together first before adding the top, smallest circle.
After that I added more tissue paper around the edges of the circle so it could look pretty--I dunno, you don't have to do that. I also added some greenery to the smallest circle. Sorry I don't have pictures of that. I just used hot glue and scrunched it up, and glued it around the edges.
Then, I wrapped the diapers around the bottom layer (the bigger circle with the diaper-height cylinder in the middle). I did two layers, so it's thicker. I used a big rubberband to hold them all together... you need four hands to get it to stay, so hubby came to help me here.
On the middle level I did the same exact thing except just one layer of diapers around the middle cylinder. Same thing... Four hands to add the rubber band to hold it all. --At this point it may look lopsided and weird but done worry, trust me, read on!
Now you add the top layer--The smallest, bowl-sized circle. Here I used a smaller cardboard cylinder--An empty toilet paper roll was the perfect size, I didn't even have to cut it--and I wrapped a layer of diapers around it.
Then is the fun part!! Add the ribbon around each layer to cover up the rubber bands. Used hot glue just to close the ends of the ribbon together, you don't have to glue around the whole cake. I tried to hot glue each layer together near in the same spot so I could cover them. And then add flowers and go crazy! I cut some of the greenery around the flowers off in the beginning to add some flare underneath the diapers on the bottom and top layers, and I added some flowers to hide where I glued the ribbon ends together, and just glued them to sporadic parts of the diapercake to make it look nice.
After adding the ribbon is when I really noticed it all coming together. I didn't even ask my husband what he thought before he noticed what I was doing and said "That looks really good Jenn!" It made my day! Since then I've been showing pictures to EVERYONE including YOU! So tell your friends! I'm really proud, and Heidi LOVED it! She can use the diapers if she wants but she said she never wants to take it apart, but keep it as a decoration in the nursery (which may be a good thing cause I went a little crazy with the glue in some spots).
I hope this little tutorial helps! I've never done a craft how-to before (maybe because I'm not crafty), but this was fun! Maybe it'll motivate me to do more! If you have questions feel free to ask me in the comments section! This was only my second one, but it was a HUGE improvement in my opinion!
Let me know what you think!
