Shower gifts are always a big dilemma for me.
Should I give practical or fun and fabulous?
It's been a while since I've been to a baby shower
so while I was trying to come up with a clever idea,
I came across this photo of a gift I made a few years ago...
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A Diaper Cake!
For the life of me I couldn't remember how difficult it was to make...
as I sat pondering the idea of just ordering some fabulous item
from some genius crafter at Etsy, I began to remember the oohs and ahhs
this little gift evoked.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all about a heart felt gift.. in fact,
I am the first one to spend hours
searching for the perfect gift, but if I'm being honest here, I must say I do love an
oooh and ahhh from the recipient. *If the crowd likes it too, well..
With inspiration at hand, I set out on my journey to give it the old college try.
What I learned in the process??
Not only are diaper cakes thoughtful and uber adorable,
they are fabulously fun and EASY to make!
For this project, I used one 14 inch cardboard cake round, one 12 inch dowel, 59 size 3 diapers, hot glue and double sided tape, rubber bands in assorted sizes, assorted ribbon, silk flowers and an assortment of small gifts in the baby's room theme. * I chose a larger size diaper so the mother can keep the cake for a
while, as an adorable baby room decoration.
To begin, I rolled 56 of the diapers and secured them with small rubber bands. Next, I rolled a diaper around the end of a plastic dowel and secured it firmly with another small rubber band.
I hot glued the diapered end of the dowel to the cake round. Next, I glued it to the cardboard cake round. To make the first layer, I took a couple of the rolled diapers and stood them upright next to the dowel. I secured them loosely with a large rubber band then kept inserting diapers into that rubber band until five surrounded the dowel.
I did that again two more times for this layer, using eleven diapers for the second circle around the dowel and sixteen for the last, for a total of 33 diapers on the bottom layer.
For the second and third tiers I repeated the process. I kept the colored ends of the diapers all facing one direction to give it a professional and tidy appearance.
Voila! I had my three tier diaper cake!
This took all of 30 minutes! I'm also the first one to bore of a project that takes too long,
so this is my kind of craft!
Now the real fun began... I didn't time this part because it was just
too much fun to care.
To decorate the cake, I took a thick ribbon and wrapped it around each tier, taking care to cover the rubber bands completely. Then I used hot glue to secure. I layered thin ribbons as well as different colors in order to make the cake really pop with a little something special. As you can see from my previous cake years before, it's just as lovely to tie bows.
Since I chose to secure these ribbons with hot glue, I used silk flowers to cover the glued ends,
then turned the cake around to decorate the other side with the mother's theme.
What do you think?
I think my dilemma is solved!
Fabby and practical!
I read the funniest thing while looking for some great ideas for this cake.
It was a curious husbands comment..
"Now, how does a diaper cake work, exactly? You eat it?"
I hope the wife said "yes". HA!
