Diaper Cake

Diaper Cakes make an adorable Baby Shower centerpiece decoration
AND a fun gift for the Mom-To-Be!

There are lots of different variations of the Diaper Cake.
The one I’m going to show you today is quite simple and my personal favorite.

Diaper Cake

– Supplies –

2 packages of diapers (I used Pampers size 2)
Lots of small elastics and about 6 large elastics
Cardboard for cutting out circles
Ribbon (I used 1 1/2″ Sand N’ Sea Preppy Stripes Ribbon)
Tissue Paper
Crinkle Cut Craft Paper
1 Wooden Dowel
Stuffed Animal
Scissors
Glue Gun
Glue Sticks
Tape

The Diaper Cake I’ll be showing you how to make is a 3 tiered cake.
Depending on how many diapers you have you can make your cake larger or smaller.

When choosing your diapers I’ve found it’s best to pick out simple diapers with little or no designs
on them. I’ve heard you can also use cloth diapers for your diaper cake, but I’ve never tried it myself.

I like to use size 2 diapers because as cute as the newborn diapers are,
baby only fits in them for like 5 minutes!

Plus, everyone loves to give the teeny, tiny diapers!
So, let everyone else give those ones and in the meantime, Mommy can enjoy the diaper cake as a decoration in the baby’s nursery.

Now, the first thing you want to do is begin rolling up your diapers up into little bundles.

Start rolling the diaper at the opening and roll inward.

Hold tightly and secure with a small elastic.

Make sure the elastics are in the center of the diaper.
This will help them all look even when you assemble your diaper cake.

The reason I secure the diapers with elastics rather than tape is because once I was given an adorable diaper cake that was ruined with tape.

You see, WAY back when I had my first baby (ten years ago) diapers had this plastic outer layer.
So, when I removed the tape from the diaper the plastic layer would come off with it and cotton would come spilling out.

These days diapers are better made and you probably could use tape to secure them, but I still
don’t dare!

Roll up all of the diapers until you have a big pile like this!

Dang! That’s a lot of diapers!
It’s a good thing I had help!

After you’ve rolled up all of the diapers you can start to assemble your “cake layers”.

For the top layer of the diaper cake I used 8 diapers.

Stand them on end and form a circle, with 1 diaper in the middle and 7 surrounding it.
Secure with a large elastic.

You’ll want to make sure that the crease of the diapers are facing inward.
This will make it look nice and neat.

You may find it easier to to wrap the large elastic around 2 or 3 of the diapers and then add more into the circle one at a time.

For the middle layer I used 20 diapers.
Form a circle of 8, just like the top layer.

Secure the circle with a large elastic and then form a larger circle by adding 12 more diapers around the first circle.
Secure that circle with a large elastic, as well.

Some people use a roll of toilet paper or paper towels instead of diapers for the inner layers.
You can also hide little gifts, like baby bath or wash cloths in the center of the diaper cake.

It’s a fun surprise for Mom!
But, like I said before, I’m going simple with this one.

The bottom layer of the diaper cake is made in the same way, but with a whole lot more diapers.

Start by forming a circle of 8 diapers.
Secure with a large elastic.

Add 12 diapers around the circle just as you did with the middle layer.
Secure that circle with a large elastic.

Add 20 diapers around that circle and secure with an elastic.

Now that all of your layers are complete you need a base for your diaper cake.

You can use cake rounds found at a craft store in the
baking section for this or you can cut your own like I did.

You’ll need a large circle, a medium circle and a small circle.

A pizza stone, a dinner plate and a salad plate work great!

Trace and cut out your cardboard circles.

Do not use your nice scissors for this step!
I’m cringing at the thought of someone using their sewing scissors to cut cardboard!

Use sturdy kitchen shears or scissors you find in your little boy’s tool box for this job.

I poked holes in the center of the 2 smaller cardboard circles.
I will explain why in just a minute.

You can decorate your cardboard however you would like.
I’ve painted them and covered them in scrapbook paper.

My favorite thing to do is use crinkle cut craft paper to cover the cardboard.
It’s easy and I like the look of it.

I have 3 packages pictured but I only ended up using one.
It goes a long way!

You can find this paper at the craft store but it’s cheaper at the dollar store.
Or if you have lots of patience you could cut it by hand!
Patience is not one of my strong points, so I’ve never tried that.

Using your hot glue gun apply a small amount of hot glue to the edge of your circle.
Working in small sections lay the crinkle craft paper over the hot glue.
Be careful not to burn your fingers!

Repeat this step with all 3 cardboard circles and set aside.

Wrap your ribbon around the layers of the diaper cake one at a time.
This will cover the rubber bands. And look super cute!
We all know that everything looks cuter with ribbon! 🙂

You can glue, tape or tie the ribbon in a bow.
It’s up to you!

I chose to hot glue my ribbon.
No, I did not hot glue it to the diapers.

I overlapped the ribbon and glued the ends of the ribbon together.

As you can see I decided to wrap tissue paper around first and then I topped it with the ribbon.

Once you’ve wrapped your ribbon around all three layers you can finally assemble your diaper cake!

Set the bottom layer on the largest cardboard circle.

Insert the wooden dowel into the center of the bottom layer of diapers.
Honestly, you don’t need the wooden dowel, but it does help stabilize the diaper cake.

I would hate for the diaper cake to fall apart in the car on the way to the baby shower!

Slide the wooden dowel through the hole in the medium sized cardboard circle.

Add the middle layer to your diaper cake.

Slide the wooden dowel through the hole in the small cardboard circle.
Add the top layer to the diaper cake.

Now your cake is assembled and you can embellish it as little or as much as you’d like to!

I wanted to make mine sweet and simple so I added some tissue paper inside the top layer of the diaper cake and topped it with this little elephant.
Isn’t he the cutest?

Now my diaper cake is ready to welcome my sweet little nephew!

I love the classic brown and blue in the Sand N’ Sea Preppy Stripes Ribbon.

Whether you’re making your diaper cake for a baby boy or a baby girl
make sure to have fun with it and be creative!

You can add little baby items like lotions, spoons, socks and toys.

If you’re making a girly diaper cake you can really go crazy with ribbon, flowers, tulle, feathers, or even headbands and hair bows!

You’ll never look at diapers the same way again!
Happy crafting!