Perhaps one of the most fun parties to throw is a baby shower. It is such a happy occasion and there are so many options as to what you can do. One of the nicest options that has gotten really popular in the last few years is making a diaper cake center piece. These are fairly easy to make and you can find instructions on the internet and in books about planning a baby shower.
You cannot serve this cake to the guests for dessert but it will do double duty even without being eaten. It makes a wonderful centerpiece for the table and a wonderful gift for a mother-to-be. Putting out a few cute stuffed animals as a centerpiece is nice but how many stuffed animals can one baby use? A gift of extra diapers and other goodies will be put to a lot more use in the nursery.
These cakes can be customized to fit a boy or a girl. They can also be kept “generic baby” if the mother-to-be does not know what baby will be. You can customize it to fit a theme also. For example if the mother to be is into sailing and is having a boy you can put a bathtub toy sailboats and sail boat motif bibs on the cake. If mom likes a certain flower, you can put several flower motif bibs and onesies on the cake for a girl. There are lots of things you can think of.
You can also make the cake as small or as large as you like and your budget will allow. The first thing you will need is a cardboard cake base. These can be found in most stores that sell cake decorating supplies. Try one of the chain craft stores for starters. The first decision you have to make is will the baby shower diaper cake be round or square.
The next thing you will have to do is buy diapers. Today there are boy and girl diapers along with unisex ones. Take a look at all the brands as some have really cute designs on them that will enhance the cake or get plain white ones if that’s your preference. You can use either disposable diapers or cloth ones. Ask the new mother which she plans to use on the baby.
You will need anywhere from about 20 to 80 diapers depending on the size of the “cake” you want to make and the way you build it. You will also want to collect an assortment of items related to your theme. Things like bibs, onesies, pacifiers, baby thermometers, teething rings, bath products and toys.
Your next step is to make the diapers into cylindrical shapes and then you can put them next to each other on the cardboard. It you are going for a large cake you can put a few things in the middle of the first and second layer. For example put a bottle of baby bath, baby lotion, and baby shampoo together and then build around them. You will use less diapers and mom will get an assortment of goodies. After you have the diapers arranged around the bottles in the shape you want your can use strategically hidden tape to hold them together or tie a ribbon around them to hold them in place. Continue doing the same thing for the next layers. When you have your cake as high as you want it (put layer on layer) then you can start to decorate it with things like toys, pacifiers, small stuffed animals, teething rings and baby washcloths. For the “topper” a stuffed animal is cute and a grouping of different colored bottles is nice too.
All that is left for you to do after that is to bring the cake to the shower, sit back, and listen to the compliments.