Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Babycakes!




Mary recently asked me how to make the diaper cake above, so I thought I'd pass on my crafty know-how to all my bloggy friends.

BABYCAKES SUPPLIES:

- floral wire
- card board circle 12"-14" diameter (depending on size of your base tier)
- a couple 12" doilies
- hot glue gun & glue
- ribbons & decorative items
- 2-3 small baby bottles with flat tops. (Soap, powder, sippy cup, etc. will do. Anything round that will be about the same size as the width of the diaper. The following directions use 2 small bottles. Adjust as needed.)
-45 - 50 diapers. I used size 3. Try to find plain white. It's hard to do, but I found one that had a decoration only on the front waist. To hide this I just folded the front down to make a triangle and put the solid white to the outside of the cake. (I don't recall the brand name, but it was in a large yellow box at Wal-Mart and it only cost about $18 for a box of about 95. This made two babycakes.)

BABYCAKES DIRECTIONS:

Step 1: Cut out cardboard circle (about 12"-14" in diameter.) Cover with doilies, with lace overlapping edge of cardboard, so the lace can peek out from under the cake.

Step 2 - Separate your bottles from the lids. I found it easier to stack two 4-6 oz bottles one on top of the other, rims together, and then the lids on top of that, rims together as well.

Step 3 - Wrap a long piece of floral wire (about a couple feet) around the bottom bottle (you will eventually use it to tie the center pole together so the cake doesn't topple over). Set aside the other bottles for now. (The only thing I didn't figure out is how to secure the Babycake to the cardboard base. Now that I think about it, I would probably poke a hole in the middle and knot the wire through before securing it to the first bottle.)

Step 4 - Wrap the bottle with diapers (on their sides). I overlapped them about half way. It takes 3 or 4 for the first layer. When you've covered the bottle, and like how it looks, secure it with a piece of wire. Continue to wrap with diapers until it forms a good size base for your cake. Securing each circle with wire (not too tight, though, so you don't rip the diapers!)

Step 5 - Take your next bottle and place it on top of the center of the base layer. Rim to rim works best. Wrap the wire connected to the first bottle around the second bottle, leaving plenty to secure to the third tier and to the top ribbon.

Step 6 - Repeat steps 4 & 5 for as many times as it takes to complete the size cake you want. I did 3 layers and found that was plenty. Leave wire ends poking through on top to secure to the ribbon.

Step 7 - After you have your layers completed, secure the wire on top to a bow. (It takes about 4 -5 yards of ribbon to make a big bow to go on top of the cake. Ribbon with wire edges stand up the best.)

Step 8 - Decorate the cake. I used little rattles I found at Wal-Mart. Just tucked them in the diapers. I also used 2 coordinated colors of ribbon to tie around each tier (Michael's has cute ribbons that have baby sayings on them like "It's a Girl!" or "Baby Booties!") I secured the ends to each other with a dot of hot glue to hold them in place (just don't get the glue on the diapers!)

Makes a great baby shower gift and centerpiece!

3 comments:

Musings of a Housewife said...

How CUTE!

Anonymous said...

Great cake! No calories in that one!

Rebecca said...

Very cute and easy instructions - thank you! Now I know how to gift off that half box of diapers that my daughter outgrew too quickly!