Diaper Cake – getting started

When I was hosting a baby shower I wanted to make a Diaper Cake to place on the gift table as a centerpiece.  Afterwards I had SO MANY people ask me how I made the diaper cake that I decided to make a DETAILED blog with step by step instructions. Diaper cakes are also sometimes called Diaper Towers.

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Diaper Cake Supplies

To get started, you will need some disposable diapers and rubber bands.  I also like to get an tray to use to put the cake on to make it easier to move around.  I used a flat tray from a local party store that was about 16″ in diameter, but looking back I wish I would have gotten more of a pretty serving tray that the parents could use, like some of the ones on Amazon.

If you don’t want to use a tray, you could cut a piece of cardboard the size you will need.  You could also pick up a round cake board to be the base of this structure. Really, you just need something to stabilize the tower of diapers so that you can easily pick it up and move it.

If you are making this for a baby shower you might even be able to bring that theme into the diaper tower with the diapers you use! There are so many fun cartoon characters printed right on disposable diapers including

• Sesame Street
• Paw Patrol
• Mickey Mouse
• Lion King
• Winnie the Pooh

How many diapers for a diaper cake?

How many diapers will you need?  Well, that depends on how many layers you want to do on your cake and how tight you roll the diapers. I found when I did a no rubber band diaper cake, my diapers were rolled much looser and I needed fewer diapers.

Below is a diagram of how many diapers I used on each layer for a diaper cake that had rolled diapers secured with rubber bands.  The numbers represent how many diapers you need for each layer, so if you were making a 2 tiered cake you would need a total of 26 diapers.  Three tiered cake would be 64 diapers total.  The four tiered cake I am making will need a total of 127 diapers.  I suggest purchasing a case of diapers if you will be making a larger cake.

What Size Diapers Should I Use?

There is no hard fast rule about what size of diapers to use. As a mom, I thought about this and what my needs were for my children, and decided to go with the size 2 diapers.  The size 1 diapers seems so small, and depending on the birth weight of the baby, they could outgrow them very quickly.  Size 2 is for a baby from 12 – 18 pounds.

I do like that most diapers will indicate right on them what size they are.  In the diaper in the picture above, you can see there is a 2 in the circle. Now, the size is really only important if you are want the parents to be able to use the diapers once the baby shower is over.

What Size Rubber Bands for Diaper Cake

You might be wondering if there is a specific size of rubber band you should use for your diaper cake. There really is no right or wrong answer here, but there are some factors about your rubber bands that you should consider.

Did you know that rubber band sizes are made up of three measurements. This includes the

• Wall
• Width
• Flat Length

These factors are important to consider. If the overall flat length is too long, you will be wrapping your rubber bands around the diaper multiple times. Additionally, if the rubber band has a really thick wall dimension it might be hard to stretch the bands around the diapers. I believe I used a #19 size rubber band for mine.

Let’s get rolling

The next part of the process is the most time consuming . . . rolling up all of those diapers!  I like to take a stack of them when I sit down at night to watch television and roll them.  It is something that you can do without much thought so it is good “television work”.

I started by placing the diaper down with the printed image up.  The printed images are on the front of the diaper.  Then starting at the bottom I roll it up like a jellyroll and place a rubber band around the center.

Now, if the image that is printed on the diaper happens to match the theme of the baby shower, and you want to roll them so the front side is showing, that is fine . . . I have seen some done this way also, but for my purpose the image would clash with the theme of the shower so I like to roll them to have a nice white diaper and then I can decorate it with any colors and images I want.

Once you have several rolled up you will have a pile like the one in the image below.

The next step is building the tiers of the cake.  Because I don’t want this post to get too long, I will show you that part tomorrow. Then we will go into a variety of ways you can decorate this diaper cake to personalize it for the parents or the theme of the baby shower.

This project can be found on Pinterest by clicking HERE.

Diaper Cakes – Getting started
Diaper Cakes – Building the Tiers
Diaper Cakes – Adding the Decorations
Money Saving Diaper Cake Ideas

See all of Shawn’s Diaper Cake creations HERE.

What Questions Do You Have?

If you feel like there is something I missed or that you want more detail on, please drop me a comment! When I first wrote this article, I did not have the image that shows how many diapers I used for each tier of the cake. Because so many people were asking me about that, I came back and updated this article to include that detail!

Other Gift Ideas for New Parents

Since you are looking to make a diaper cake, I figured you might be interested in OTHER gift ideas for new parents. Below are some of my number one picks!

The first one is something that no new parent wants to think about, but choking can happen in the blink of an eye, so you should be prepaired. LifeVac is the safest and easiest way to help dislodge an object that is causing someone to choke.