Polka Dot Baby Shower: Diaper Cake

This was my first attempt at a diaper cake and I thought it turned out really cute! I’ve seen several variations and tutorials on Pinterest (my favorite being this one) but when it came down to it, I just gathered some supplies and started. My sister just had a baby boy (SOOOO excited to finally be an aunt!!) and her nursery theme is blue and green polka dots, so that’s what we used for the shower theme. Here’s how I put mine together:

Supplies used:
Approx 75 size 1 diapers
Approx 75 clear mini hair rubberbands
3 large rubber bands (I just used ones that held the newspaper)
Glue dots
coordinating grosgrain ribbon (I like the higher end look of grosgrain, but you could go with a wide satin ribbon also)
coordinating raffia or curling ribbon
6 baby spoons
baby shampoo/lotion
baby food jar
elephant receiving blanket
stuffed elephant (Silas picked this out for baby Elliott from Build A Bear Workshop 🙂

Roll each diaper starting at the folded end tightly and wrap rubber band around to secure. I used Target brand diapers because they have blue and green polka dots on them, couldn’t have worked out more perfectly!! Otherwise, I would highly recommend buying the Huggies Pure & Natural diapers. They are super soft for small babies and they’re a natural white color which would go with any diaper cake color scheme. You can certainly use Pampers if you like, but they’re very colorful so plan on covering them up with receiving blankets (like this one).

It takes a little while to roll 50 diapers so grab a coffee, load an episode of Downton Abbey on Netflix, and you’ll be finished in no time. 🙂

Once you have the diapers rolled, place the large rubber band around the baby shampoo and start shoving the rolled diapers around, underneath the rubber band. Keep going until you have about 5 layers of diapers surrounding the baby shampoo. Do the same with a new rubber band for the second layer of the “cake”.

I used Johnson & Johnson lavender baby shampoo which was great because it was tall and narrow, but it wasn’t quite tall enough for the top layer. I had originally planned to use a smaller bottle of baby shampoo for the top, but that would have been too tall. Depending on the stuffed animal used for the top this might have been ok, but the elephant I was using needed to sit on a flat surface. Enter baby food jar!

Attach baby food jar to the top of the shampoo bottle with a few glue dots.

Using the same method as the other layers, use a rubber band around the baby food jar and make the top layer of the cake.

Attach ribbon around each layer and secure with glue dots. I actually found this pretty green polka dot grosgrain ribbon at Walmart for $1.97! Decorate the front of each layer with two cris cross spoons secured with more glue dots. Attach raffia bow to the front of each set of spoons.

For the top, I just set the elephant receiving blanket and stuffed animal on top and didn’t secure them at all, but I would have used safety pins if I was going to attach them.
You can certainly decorate with rings, pacifiers, etc. Just don’t go overboard! You don’t need to cram something into every corner, diaper cakes look adorable as is. After all, that’s what wishing wells are for!

Overall, everyone was impressed and I think it turned out super cute! We used it as the main decoration on the food table and it really tied in the color scheme perfectly, plus it’s something you know mom will use!

Linking up to: Mix it up Monday, Cure for the Common Monday, Savvy Homemade Monday, Just Something I Whipped Up, Mop it up Monday, Thrify Thursday, It’s a Keeper Thursday, Strut Your Stuff, Things I’ve Done Thursday.