Diaper Cake

Hello readers! You may have noticed that I've been MIA for the last couple of nights. I can now reveal that the reason is that I was hard at work making a baby gift for my colleague Nadia. We held a surprise "sprinkle" for her today at work and, along with a basket of books, we also gave her a diaper cake made by yours truly.

For those not in the the know, a diaper cake is not actually a cake but diapers made to look like a cake. For this one I rolled and tied 84 diapers with ribbon and then formed them into three tiers. Tying all the diapers is the part that takes the most time. You could secure the diapers with elastic but I think that's the cheater's way and it just doesn't look as nice to me! Once they are all tied, you form them into tiers secured with more ribbon. I use thin ribbon tied tightly and then cover that with my decorative ribbon that I leave a little looser so I can slide the baby items in. I use two or three pieces of scotch tape between my layers just to hold everything in place. If you use too much you risk damaging the diapers but a couple of pieces shouldn't hurt anything. Once your cake is formed, simply cover it in smallish baby gifts, slipping them under your decorative ribbon. For this cake I bough wash clothes, a bib, hats, diaper cream and a bunch of other items. My favourite thing was the adorable bunny slippers that I wish came in grown up sizes!

And that's about all there is to creating a diaper cake. There are detailed instructions with pictures on About.com if there's anything you're not sure about. My only other tip would be to make your cake with size 1 diapers or larger. If you make it with newborn size then Mom-to-be will have to take it apart right away to use the diapers. The larger the size, the longer she gets to enjoy it!

Here are some pictures of the cake I made last night. I apologize for the picture quality, I was having trouble photographing all that white. Click on the pictures for larger versions so you can see all of the items!