This weekend one of our friends had a baby shower. I decided to make a diaper cake. What is a diaper cake? Well, it is definitely not edible, but it looks like a cake, only made out of diapers! I had made one a few years ago, but wanted to do it again. This is how we made it:

First, find out if the mom-to-be will be using cloth or disposable diapers. If the new family will be using cloth diapers, you can use them as well as receiving blankets, burp cloths, wash clothes etc. If they are using disposable diapers like my friend said she will be using, then get about 40-60 diapers (fewer if using larger sized diapers). At least they get another usage as a gift before heading out to the landfill 🙁

Second step is to take these diapers out and individually wrap them with a rubber band. If you are really talented, or have a lot of help to hold things together you needn’t do this, but it helps to keep things manageable.

Package of diapers and individually tied diaper

Next, you bunch these together to form the base of the “cake” as shown below:

Many diapers together as base

The outside diapers are not wrapped into little coils, they are out to make a circular area. Then wrap a large rubber band around the whole outside area to hold it together.

Next wrap this area with tissue paper. Make sure the bottom is covered (we made the mistake of not wrapping the bottom and a few individual diapers fell out later).

Make as many layers to the cake as you want (I’d say 3-4), getting progressively smaller each layer. Tie each layer on the outside with a bow. And keep the whole thing together with ribbon going vertically.

Diaper Cake Bows

And finally, attach small gifts all over the cake.

Back side of cake

Britton helped me a little, but it really wasn’t too hard to put together. I put this all together with about 30 minutes of time (having all the materials on hand). It’s a fun and unique gift that I thought I’d share with you all.