Diaper Cake and Wall Art!!

My niece recently had a baby girl, and for her baby shower, I made her a diaper cake! I used an entire case of 124 diapers. It makes a large, beautiful cake. I will give you the EASY instructions to make this cake. Trust me, if I can make this cake, so can you. This was my first attempt EVER!

The supplies you need are:

• Diapers: get 30-40 for one layer, 70 for 2 layers, and 124 for the 4 layer cake.
  
• Go to the dollar store and pick up some very inexpensive mini plastic toys (I think these are things for decoration or for baby showers). Plus get any other items you would like to use, such as small toys, mini baby powder (put in place of a diaper), socks (for mom and baby), Onesies, clothes, bath cloths, towel, blanket, creams, bath wash, pacifiers, etc.
  
• Get some type of a topper for the cake, i.e. stuffed animal, larger toy, etc.
  
• Pick up some long pearl headed pins
• A couple of artificial flower sprigs (two different sizes), which I also got at the dollar store.
  
• Rubber bands. You need a regular sized rubber band for each diaper, then you need some very large rubber bands (or 10-20 extra regular size), mine were 7-8" and were obtained from an office supply store. If you can't find the large rubber bands, use regular sized ones to connect the pods (explained later).
  
• Ribbon. Wide ribbon looks best and covers the most sins. Get 4 yards, but you will probably only use 3 for the large cake.
• Piece of poster board, or a cake stand. (My cake was too large for a cake stand, so I made a poster board circle that is not visible in this photo.)
  

The steps to make the diaper cake are:

1. Place your piece of poster board on the table. Do not cut it into a circle until you are finished with the cake. This step is critical. The poster board helps to stabilize the cake as you are moving it, preventing diapers from falling out of the center.
   
2. Take each diaper and open it to the long form. (It is difficult to describe what I did. Basically, I did not open it all the way, as you would to put a baby in; I just flipped it open.) Now roll the diaper up (starting on the decorated end) all the way and secure it with a rubber band. Repeat for each diaper.
   
3. Using the larger rubber bands, gather 8-12 diapers and stand them up inside the rubber band. Continue adding diapers to the rubber band, by stretching the rubber band to create an opening, until you have achieved the size of the layer you would like. For the first layer, I used two large rubber bands. I put less than half of the diapers in the first rubber band, then added a second rubber band around them that I put the rest of the diapers in. This created more stability and less chance for losing the "middle" diapers. I put 45-55 diapers in the bottom layer, 35-40 in the next layer, 20-28 in the next layer, and then 8-12 in the top layer. I am sorry I do not have the exact count. I counted them as I went, but I went back and added more to each layer to make them fuller. You may have to do this also to make the layers actually sit in a bit from the layer beneath it. If you don't have the large rubber bands, use regular rubber bands to collect 8-10 diapers into a "pod". Use a rubber band to connect two or three diapers from each "pod" to create your layer.
   
4. I wrapped a piece of ribbon around each layer and tucked under the top piece to create a hem, then pinned it into place. (Using the larger headed pins helps the mom know where each pin is, avoiding any possibility of a pin accidentally dropping and not being seen possibly endangering the baby.)
5. I tied a bow and pinned it into place through the inside of the loops.
6. Add the little toys, bath wash, cream, or other goodies to sit around the cake at various places. Don't forget to decorate the back of the cake.
   
7. Put the topper in place and add a tag.
8. Then I filled in the holes with the flowers. Pull the flower petals off the stems and pull out the "center" of the flowers. Now gather two large petals and one coordinating smaller petal together and pin into place using one of the pearl pins. Don't forget to decorate the back of the cake. Click the photo to see enlargements of each detail.

Some people put a few shirts or rolled up clothes, juice, stuffed animals, or any other small items I suggested above into the center of the bottom layer. If you can roll it up or it is not taller than a diaper, you can just put it right into the layer anywhere! You will use less diapers this way or have a HUGE cake! Rolled up Onesies make a great layer all of their own. Also, if you can't find pearl headed pins, you can order the Pretties Kit from Stampin' Up! (just ask me!) and make your own. The kit includes half back pearls, which you can glue to your own regular flat headed pins. This project took 2-3 hours, only because of the rolling of the diapers. The decorating took about 30 minutes.

Finally, here are a couple more Wall Art pieces I made. I hand sketch each piece of wall art prior to painting it. Believe me, I go through a lot of erasers.

Thanks for stopping by today.