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Archive for February, 2016

How to Make a Diaper Cake into a Huge Success

Friday, February 19th, 2016

I love arts and crafts time; I have loved it since I was a child.  So when I was invited to the Baby Shower for my brother and sister-in-law, I couldn’t have been more happy to create something special and a lasting memory.  There were a few solid reasons why the hubs and I decided to do a diaper cake for Amy and Trevor. First, this is a great way to tie together and present many of the major items you will need as a new parent.  Washcloths galore, hooded towels and diapers, lots and lots of diapers; but, let’s not forget that champagne.  Here are the steps and list of items you will need to make this EPIC, SEA THEMED DIAPER CAKE for your next baby shower!

List of Supplies to create an Epic, Sea Themed Diaper Cake

  • Decorative large tray (Dollarama)
  • 1 Bag Elastic Bands (Dollarama)
  • Safety Pins (Dollarama)
  • Two colors of ribbons (Michaels)
  • Pipecleaners (colors to match squirtie toys)
  • Diapers Newborn, 120 Count
  • 1 Set Hooded Towels – Sea Theme (3 towels in total)
  • 1 Set Squirtie Toys – Sea Party Theme
  • 1 Set Primary Color Washcloths (12 cloths in total)
  • 1 Nuby Icy Teether
  • Champagne or Sparkling Wine Bottle

The Lamaze Octotunes you see in the above photo was the inspiration for this project.  He wanted to share the joy he got by seeing his son play with this toy when Ryan was young.  Each of the legs makes a different tune when you squeeze it and the entire toy smells so wonderful, completely like the baby section.  Even the girls (Sophia and Sailor) kept going over to the toy to smell it’s baby aroma. lol So all the colors of this cake were chosen to go with Mr. Octotunes.

D.I.Y Instructions- How to to create an Epic, Sea Themed Diaper Cake

Let’s start off with all those diapers.  Each needed to rolled, with an elastic put around the center to hold it together.  Try to go with the curve of the diaper rather than against.  I kept all the diapers in their folded state and rolled on from there. The first eight or so go around that champagne bottle to start creating the circle shape of the cake.  Keep putting rolled diapers around the champagne bottle until you fill the entire tray.  Put a big elastic around the first row of diapers surrounding the champagne, then put another elastic (or two if one won’t reach) around the entire circle of diapers.

The hooded towels were wrapped around all the diapers on each of the level to create an “icing look” for each of the levels.  They were not pinned into place but simply tucked under and around the layer of diapers.  I ended up getting a ribbon roll of sturdy, non-wired almost burlap like material, which i sed to tightly wrap around the base of each layer and pin into place to add a structural tightness to each layer.

I chose to do three layers, white, blue and white.

The colorful yellow and blue ribbons were wrapped on top of the burlap ribbon to create another layer of ‘decorative icing’ and safety pinned in the back.  At this point, you may want to straighten the layers out, perform sturdiness tests and reinforce as required to keep you cake in tip-top shape.

This entire time that the cake had been in process, the hubs here; Mike – had been working on the washcloth rosettes.  In the end, we found attaching the rosettes quite a bit more difficult than anticipated, so he started wrapping the rosettes around pipecleaners, so the pipecleaner and washcloth could be held by pressure, after inserting the pipecleaner between the cake layers.  God job honey, that’s a long time to work on baby cloths. lol.

Basically, we also had the same problem with the Squirtie toys when we started to add them, so each of the bath creatures got attached to the cake through pressure-held pipecleaners between the cake layers.  A special bow was added to the top using wired ribbon.

Here’s a look at the almost finished piece.  I went back to the store looking for a ‘life preserver’ to put on the cake.  I ended up finding an icy teether and attached that with ribbon in the front as a focal point.

Here’s the finished piece, Momma and All!

This diaper cake might take you awhile to create and it certainly won’t be cheap.  It will however be loved, a statement piece at a baby shower and a lasting memory for years to come for both you and the giftees.  Now that’s the Cats’ Meow.