Baby Shower fun and a Diaper Cake Tutorial

One of the things I recently promised to blog about was what we made for my sister-in-law's shower (after it happened). Well, the shower was yesterday, so I can safely show you what we did! :)

My mom and I had so much fun putting together this diaper cake. I had seen cute ones at homemade by jill and alpha+mom. I liked some aspects of both, but we were also limited in our supply shopping by living rurally. You'll be happy to know that you can make our diaper cake with supplies you find at Target, WalMart, and the local grocery store.

My mom really liked it when the diapers showed so that you could tell what the cake was made of, and I liked the bottle of champagne (though we used sparkling ligonberry-apple cider) as the center piece. With those thoughts in mind, we went on our hunt for supplies.

Here is what we bought:
-A 116 diaper package of Luvs (this ended up being a good size to go with, we didn't use all of them, but I'd say we only had about 25 left over. I tell you this, because no one else said how many diapers they used. Oh, and we used size 1 diapers, because some babies (like mine) are too big for newborns when they are born, and all babies will eventually use size 1.
-A bottle of something celebratory to toast with when the big day arrives
- As many elastics as diapers: we used small hair elastics (clear was preferred, but not necessary--since we couldn't find them anywhere)
-A bag of jumbo mailing rubber bands
-2.5" white satin ribbon--the cheap stuff is fine
-A roll of other decorative ribbon, and one more in a coordinating color if you like
-A few toys to decorate with (we used a pack of teethers and a stuffed horse)
-A package of straight pins
-A platter

1. We started out by rolling our package of diapers and rubber-banding them. Roll with the design at the top hidden inside the roll. Then secure with a small elastic. I'd roll at least 80 to start with.
2. Place the bottle of yumminess on the platter.
3. Start placing rolled diapers in concentric circles around the bottom of the bottle. Our first cake layer had 3 circles of diapers. Secure a large mailing rubber band around all of the diapers--this took 4 hands.
4. Then move up a layer, using 1 less row of diapers, and following the rest of the instructions in Step 3.
5. Same as before...this is probably your last layer, because it is about as tall as the bottle by now.
6. Using the wide white satin ribbon, wrap it around each layer to hide the big rubber band. Straight pin it to itself--we don't want holey diapers!
7. Next cover the satin ribbon with your pretty ribbon and pin in back. We used the teethers to decorate the ribbon. I secured them by threading the ribbon through them when the shape made it possible. When the shape was difficult, I got creative, and found a few toothpicks. I taped a toothpick to the back of the teether and threaded the ribbon through there--don't forget to wash the teethers before you use them Mel! ;)
   
8. Then I pinned the coordinating ribbon down in a cascade.
9. And, because I am no good at making pretty bows for the tops of things, we stuck the little horsey up there and pinned him to the ribbon.

My parents carted it 17 hours back to Colorado in a box, and my understanding is that it traveled really well.

These make cute centerpieces at a shower-I think ours went up on the gift table. Cute and fun to do!

We also made little hand-dipped truffles for the party favors. (I love the blogoshpere for ideas!) We got our super simple truffle recipe from Bakerella's blog. We topped them with Oreo crumbs and cute little blue flowers to commemorate my new nephew!

And, we made a Price-is-Right shower game, got things for the guests to make a scrapbook for the baby, and bought miniature baby bottles to freeze in ice-cubes. Each guest gets an ice cube, and the first one who's cube melts and the bottle floats free yells out, "My water broke!" When I first heard about this game I laughed so hard, that I had to convince my mom to do it. I laughed even harder at the thought of my beautiful 16 year old cousin yelling the phrase to win the prize yesterday--way to go Katelyn! Hee hee. Maybe it's just my quirky sense of humor.

So I was able to send my mom home with a planned party.

I had a blast, which I think will serve our business well if we ever get it going. ;)

Edited June 23, 2009: here is the link to my latest cake..a girly one! :)