Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Tutorial for making a Diaper Cake



Diaper Cakes

Diaper cakes are wonderful for baby shower gifts, baby shower decorations, or just a gift for an expecting mother. They are fun and easy to make as well.


Tutorial for making the diaper cake. Materials needed:
  • Diapers (approx. 60 newborn or size 1)
  • Cardboard cake plate (or other base)
  • Double sided tape
  • Big Rubber Bands
  • Little elastic bands ( i use little baby hair bands)
  • 1 big baby bottle, and 1 small baby bottle
  • Ribbon
  • Scissors
  • Candy to fill the baby bottles
  • Decor if wanted for the cake (ie: baby blanket folded up to go around the middle layer, baby toys, baby pacifiers, stuffed animals, clothes, flower clips, headbands, combs/brushes, baby wash/lotion/powder, any other baby items
  • straight sewing pins
Step #1 Start with a cardboard cake plate. I got this one at Walmart in the bakery/cake/party accessories section. Place a few strips of double sided tape on the bottom so that the cake and bottle will stick to it.th
Step #2: To fold the diapers for the cake: open up each diaper like so, having the back end facing you.

Step #3: Next, roll the diaper up, back end first. This will make a cleaner nicer roll

Step #4: Then when all rolled up, place a small elastic band around the diaper. Little baby hair elastics work well because they are small and stretchy. You want the band to be pretty tight. You will need 60 or so diapers in the end.

Step #5: First take your baby bottle which you can fill with candy for the mom. Next place the baby bottle on the cake plate. Then place a large elastic band around the bottle. Then put a diaper in it. Remember to place the nice looking side out. Keep adding diapers around the bottle until full. (approx 6 diapers)

Step #6: the first layer and first row done.

Step #7: Add another layer to the first row by adding another rubber band around all of the diapers and adding another row of diapers around the first row. Should be approximately 12 diapers for the second row.

Step #8:Place a second elastic band around the diapers so that you can add in another row.

Step #9:This is the bottom layer finished. There should be three rows. First row: 6 diapers, second row: 12 diapers, third row: 18-20 diapers ( i stuffed a few extra to make it tight)

Step #10: For the second layer, do the same thing as you did to the bottom layer, when done, stuff a smaller bottle in the middle. see next picture

Step#11: Second layer should have two rows. first row: 6 diapers, second row: 12 diapers

Step#12: Do another row of 6 diapers for the third and final layer. Here are the finished diapers for the cake

Step #13: I added a baby blanket folded up in thirds to go around the middle layer of the cake. I used double sided tape to make it stay.

Step#14: I then placed an elastic band around the middle of it to keep it in place. I will later put ribbon around the elastic band so you wont even know its there.

Step #15: Mount the ribbon onto the cake over the elastic band with double sided tape. Remember to overlap the ribbon a bit so as to have a clean line.

Step #16: If you want to add a topper, what I did was take a diaper and loosely roll it and stuff it down over the baby bottle like so.

Step#17: These are burp cloths I made and have been tied together with a pink ribbon in the middle.

Step #18: I then took my little animal, three pins, and the burp cloths and stuck the three pins through the animal, through the diaper and then ending in the burp cloths. This holds them all up together.

Step #19: Then add all of your fun things on the cake. I had flower clips, rolled up baby onesies and pants stick on with pins and double sided tape, brush and comb, baby booties, baby lotion/wash and more.

All the stuff that I am going to use to decorate the diaper cake after the diapers and ribbon are finished.





Fabric Pom Poms Tutorial


Fabric Pom Poms

These are fun for decoration in the home, for parties, weddings, and more. You can make them huge, you can make them tiny. They would be great to hang from a string at a party for decoration.


Tutorial for Fabric Pom Poms

Materials needed:

  • Fabric: any kind
  • Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks
  • Scissors


First you need to create a base for them to be glued onto. You can either use a Styrofoam ball or (what I used, so I could choose how big it was with out too much trouble) fabric rolled up into a ball and then hot glue gunned shut. You can also use folded up socks and then glue gun the opening shut to create a ball .



Above is a rolled and glue gunned pair of socks


Above is rolled up and glue gunned cotton fabric. Don't worry about it being perfect since it will be covered in the end.



Next you will need to cut out 1 inch approximate circles out of the fabric. These don't have to be perfect circles or all exactly the same size, just close. Depending on how big your pom pom ball base is and how thick your fabric is will determine how many circles you will need. I needed about 3X the amount shown in the picture above for the one i made here. (if you keep them squares instead of circles the pom pom, in this case a pom pom headband, it will come out like this.)



Next take one of your circles and fold it in half. Then fold it in half again. The basic idea is to kinda scrunch it/ roll it up like a rosette. Again, this doesn't need to be perfect. You will catch on quick and it will go much faster after the first few.


When you have it all scrunched up, take the bottom and put a bit of hot glue on it.


Then quickly place it on the fabric or Styrofoam ball you have made. You can fix it a bit if you need to right after placing on the ball to make sure that it is how you like. Be careful not to burn your fingers. (a tip: lick your finger or dip it in some water before touching the glued fabric while its still a bit hot. This will make sure that the glue doesn't stick to your fingers and burn you)

Continue to glue and place the rolled fabric rosettes onto the ball. Try to place them close so that there are not many spaces.

A finished product.