New twist on a diaper cake

Do you remember my detailed tutorial on how to make a diaper cake?  If not, click here to read it.

At the end of the last post about diaper cakes, I introduced you to Heather and some of the creations SHE has made . . . but there was one image I did not show you, because it inspired me to try something new, and I wanted to dedicate an entire blog post to that . . . so here it is.

Heather created a diaper cake bike!  This is TOO CUTE!  If you would like to see some of the details on how Heather created this, you can go to her blog.

So, this idea inspired me . . . who says a Diaper Cake needs to look like a cake?  I have a friend that I work with that we are throwing a baby shower for, and she is doing an Owl theme for some of the items for the baby’s room, and we decided to carry that baby theme into the shower.  So I created what I think is the world’s first Diaper Owl!

I think he turned out pretty cute!  Let me show you how I put him together.  Every time I refer back to my directions from the past diaper cakes I will provide links so you can easily go back and see those directions.

First, just like with the other diaper cakes, I started with rolled diapers and used the same counts as I did for the first and second tiers of the cake.

In the past I covered the rubber bands with ribbon, but I did not want the ribbon to take away from the overall look of the owl for this project, so I used some plain white paper that I cut into long strips and wrapped around the tiers.

Oh my gosh . . . I just had an idea!  If you were to create a DIFFERENT animal, wouldn’t it be cute to use an animal print ribbon around the tiers!  (Quick, I need a friend with a Zoo animal themed baby shower!)

Okay, back to the Diaper Owl . . . white paper, wrapped around the tiers, and taped at the end being sure to tape to just the paper and not the diaper so that they can still use the diapers.

Now, for lack of a better term, stack them Snowman Style

And since I used the term Snowman Style, of course I hope all of you though of how cute this idea would be for a winter baby shower, with a Diaper Snowman.  You could even make or purchase a little baby scarf and hat to put on a Diaper Snowman.  (Okay, now I need a friend who is just finding out NOW that they are pregnant so they will be having a winter baby shower)

Now for the part that I really like . . . DECORATING!

I had to be creative when cutting the pieces for the owl, since I did not have a Cricut Cartridge that had a good owl where I could just dissect the pieces, so I started to think in basic shapes.  Eyes . . . circles, with a crescent moon shape inside of it.  Beak . . . something with a long point.  Wings . . . sort of like ovals, but more of a football shape.

I ended up using my George and Basic Shapes cartridge for a lot of the cuts.

I set my Cricut to 2″.  I knew I wanted a lot of the teal blue to show up behind the eyes, and I did not want to take the time to figure out the right scale to do all of the cuts, so I used the Shadow Cut function for the circle, since that automatically makes it larger than the standard circle . . . but that still was not enough for me, so when I cut the whites of the eyes I cut it on the Silhouette cut function and used the inside cut, not the silhouetted ring/circle.  So now I basically had a bigger shadow.  You can do this with any cartridge that has both a silhouette and shadow cut function . . . I think I just thought of another blog post for another day.

Then I used the crescent moon shape from George and Basic Shapes.  I did this cut at 3/4″

Now I needed a beak.  I looked at some triangles but they were just not long enough for me . . . I wanted something with a longer point to it.  Then I saw the heart that is on the shift function for George and Basic Shapes on this page . . .

I cut it at 2″ and placed it behind the eyes and this is how it looks . . .

I added a little tape to the top of the heart and then secured the eyes to it.  Behind the owl face you can see the heart image that was cut to create the beak, along with the football shapes that I used for the wings which were cut from Sports Mania at 5″ from the shadow feature so that I did not get all of the stitching for the football on the cut.

Last, I added some feet.  I used the crescent moon shape again, this time at 3″.  Then I added a strip of paper to the back of each one, and taped it to the paper that was wrapped around the bottom tier.

Last but not least, I cut some slits into the paper that was wrapped around the top tier so that I could insert two paper ears into the slits.  To hold the face and wings to the front I used tape that I stuck to a piece of fabric first, to make it less tacky . . . this way it will hold the images for the time of the party, but not stick so hard that it will destroy the diapers when the Mother-to-be goes to remove them . . . I want her to be able to use these diapers.

This idea could easily be used for other diaper animals . . . a raccoon, cat, dog, bear . . . we could start a whole new diaper cake craze here!