Diaper Cake Tutorial

Hey everyone, well here is my tutorial on Diaper Cakes. I know there are tons of tutorials out there, but I think I've come up with a pretty simple one. Good Luck!

Start by (1) rolling up your diapers. This is a pretty long task... the diaper cake below uses 45 diapers (give or take)... so you can start with that. I suggest you roll them all up, that way when you decide to put it together it goes much quicker. I tend to spread out my diaper cake making into a few nights, otherwise I get bored.
To secure my diapers, I have used those tiny clear rubber bands, but I found that half the time they broke on me... so what I do now is pre-cut my ribbon (a few inches or so, just enough to tie around the diaper) roll the diaper with the fold on the outside (as in, it is the last thing you roll up). This makes the roll look cleaner. I then hold the rolled up diaper in the palm of one hand and then using my fingers and the other hand I tied the ribbon around it. Does that make sense? Maybe I should have taken a picture of that step.... hmmmm. It takes a few times to get the hang of it.

1. Roll up diapers

Once all of my diapers are rolled, I am ready to start on my (2) bottom layer. I use a large bottle of shampoo/lotion/etc as the center of my diaper cake. It makes a good base between the bottom 2 layers and it's useful; what new mom won't use baby lotion or shampoo.
For this layer I use a large rubber band around the bottle, and then I slip each roll between the rubber band and the bottle. Since the bottle is not a circle (as you can tell) I add a few rolls right next to the bottle on each side, and then I use a few non-rolled diapers to fill out the cake into a circle. Then I proceed to go around the bottle until I've made a circle of diapers 2-3 rolls deep.
Once complete, I tie ribbon around the whole layer and remove the rubber band (I use the same rubber band on the middle level.

2. Bottom layer



For the (3) second layer, I use the rubber band in the same way and slip rolled diapers between the rubber band and the bottle. Again, you'll see that I use a few non-rolled diapers to help fill out my circle. Finish off your layer by tying ribbon around the diapers and remove the rubber band.



3. Second layer



The (4) top layer is a breeze... using a smaller rubber band, I put 6 or 7 diapers together. You will notice the center one is sticking up a bit... this is from the bottle that I was using as a base... no problem.

4. All 3 layers

 Now that your cake is assembled, it is time to decorate. First I go around and trim up the excess ribbon from each diaper. I'm a perfectionist so I like my cakes to look clean cut and the grosgrain (or satin) ribbon does the trick. I use navy blue ribbon topped with orange and white polka dot ribbon. I use my hot glue gun to attach the ends of the ribbon together (not to the diapers... glue ribbon to ribbon), but I have used double sided tape, so whichever you have on hand will work.



(updated 2/22)
Here is the finished product:

For other samples of my diaper cakes, view my post here.