How To: Make a Diaper Cake Centerpiece

Last month I got a text from my friend Kristen that said, “I have the best post for your blog!”  I told my husband multiple times that I was going to be at Kristen’s house working on a diaper cake and it wasn’t until about the tenth time that he finally asked, “So explain to me how this works…like, do people know they’re eating diapers, or is it like.. a trick cake?” I tried to control my hysterical laughter and explained that a diaper cake isn’t for eating, that would be weird.  It’s a darling decoration you can use at a baby shower!  The actual “cake” is constructed with diapers and then it’s accessorized with cute baby things.  It looks great as a centerpiece at the shower and then the Momma-to-be gets to take it home with her and use all of the items.  It’s actually super easy, and it doesn’t take very long, especially if you’ve got a helper!

Supplies Needed:
Diapers– I love Target diapers because they don’t have lame pictures on them.  I think the blue and green polka dots are so cute, and as you’ll see below, they totally work with a girlie cake too.  But use whatever diapers you want, this is what we used and one box was the perfect amount for the size of cake we made.  If you’re looking for plain white diapers, I’ve heard that Whole Foods 365 brand are white, and Seventh Generation are off white.  You can also make this with cloth.

–Roll of paper towels
–Rubber bands or string
–Ribbon
–Accessories, like flowers, baby toys, hair bows for girls, toy trucks for boys, socks, toiletries etc.
–optional– tissue, bottle, goodies for the middle opening

You need something at the core of your cake- Kristen suggested a half used roll of paper towels and it worked great!  It ended up being the perfect height.  You could use a full roll of paper towels as well and then it might require less diapers for the same amount of bulk.  I’ve seen people use a large bottle of lotion or baby soap too, and someone in the comment section had the great idea of rolling up a receiving blanket.

There are actually a LOT of ways to make these (go do a Google image search for “Diaper Cake” and you’ll find lots of inspiration) I’m just going to show the two most popular ways below.   Shown below on the left, you can roll up individual diapers and secure each one with a rubber band, or tie them with a ribbon.  Place the rolled diapers around the cake and secure each layer with one big rubber band or ribbon.  We went with the method on the right because it was a lot less time consuming, so I’ll show ya how!

This is definitely easier with an extra set of hands so grab friend.  Or an enemy.  Doesn’t really matter as long as they have functioning hands.  Lay down the diapers overlapping like shown below left.  Then take your roll of paper towels and roll the overlapping diapers around the bottom.

When you get a layer all the way around like shown below (that’s actually 2 layers) have one person hold them like this and the other person can easily slip a rubber band around it.

Now just keep adding layers around that base until it’s the size you want it.  You can always go back and add more at the end after your other layers are added.  If your rubber bands aren’t large enough to fit around the outside layers, you can always use string.  I’m pretty sure we used dental floss at one point.

Follow that same pattern, making each tier a little smaller than the one below it.  Once you have all three tiers, you can adjust by adding or taking away layers.

Once you have the cake base made, it’s time for the fun part!  Kristen grabbed all of this fun stuff from Hobby Lobby.  You can see how even with blue and green polka dot diapers, you can still make it fun and girly.

The first step is to wrap ribbon around your tiers to cover up the rubber bands.  We just secured the ribbon with tape.

And we did 2 layers of ribbon- I love how this blue dotted ribbon matches the diapers, and it looks so cute over the pink!

You’ll also be left with an open spot on the very top.  We just stuffed a piece of tissue paper in ours.  You can artfully make it spill out, or fill the open space with goodies, a baby bottle, baby lotion or soap, or just stuff it like we did.

We took some cascading ribbon and used a little wire butterfly decoration to hold them together.

It worked well because we stuck the wire right down the middle of that opening we stuffed with tissue and it helped hold in all the ribbon.  We’re sort of geniuses.

And Kristen is a super genius because she grabbed a spool of ribbon, did a few ninja moves, and turned out a gorgeous bow in the time it took me to check my camera settings.

One tip I have is to use the layer of diapers to attach your accessories.  Like, if you’re using flowers, leave some stem on and just tuck them in.  You obviously don’t want to use glue anywhere that will attach to the diapers, but you can creatively attach things to the ribbon.  Be creative and you’ll find it’s pretty easy to stick stuff in there.

We also used this darling initial for the top, and baby utensils that we tied a infant headband around and slipped in the layer of diapers.  If you’re doing a girl cake, definitely check out hair accessories- they make darling adornments!  Little boy cakes are adorable with little toy trucks tucked in.  Little soaps and lotions are cute too.

I think my very favorite thing were these little socks!  They came in a box like that, over little plastic foot molds, so we just wrapped another headband around them.  We then took a piece of one of the wire flower stems we had cut off and slipped it in the layer of diapers.  It acted as a little  hook and we just slipped the little sockies on there.

Just move things around until you like the look of it.

and pretty soon you’ll have a gorgeous centerpiece!  How cute is that?