The Ultimate Baby Shower Gift - Diaper Cake (Tutorial)

I've already told you how much I like to give handmade gifts. When the gift is for a friend who gave birth, it's even better. My optional gifts list includes nursing cover, onesies "cupcake", hand-painted onesies and appliqued onsies. But the best, ultimate gift, I think, is a diaper cake. It's practical, pretty and has the Wow-Affect.
Two weeks ago another friend had given birth and I immediately began rolling diapers and making the cake. This time I also took photos of all steps, so now I can show you exactly how to do it.

You'll need -40-50 diapers (I use no.1. That's not the smallest, NB size, but one size bigger)
Round cardboard base
Empty paper towel roll
Pretty paper to cover the base
Your favorite kind of adhesive
Rubber bands
Small gifts - soap for the baby, ointments, clothes, blankies, toys etc.
Ribbons - paper or fabric

Begin by rolling the diaper

Secure with rubber band

Keep rolling until you think you have enough

Prepare the base - take a round cardboard and an empty paper towel roll

Attach them together using tape

If you want the base to look pretty, take a piece of nice paper and cut a hole, the size of the empty roll diameter,  in the middle

Glue it to the base

Place the rolled diapers standing on the base, around the empty roll. Do it slowly & carefully. When done,  secure with a rubber band.

Continue the same way on the second floor

Now it's time to add the little gifts in between

And move on to the third floor

To hide all the ugly rubber bands, we're going to use ribbons that we place around and then glue ends together

This time, to make it girly, I added lace

And a pink ribbon

I also like to add on top a "cupcake" made of an onesie, a burp cloth or a blankie. This time I used a light blankie.

Fold the blankie to make a narrow strip

You can add socks to be the cherry on top

Roll it all the way, beginning with the side with the socks. Secure with a rubber band

This time I also added a "lollipop" made of a hand painted onesie, rolled and taped to a baby teaspoon.

That's it. Just wrap it all nicely, add a home-baked pie, and go visit that new (exhausted...) momma!

And if you'd like to make something similar, I found this great tutorial for a diaper bouquet by Addi from Frugal Fanatic.

She has lots of other cute ideas, stop by her blog and say hi.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And now for something completely different... I want to start featuring you and your creations once a week. So I created a new group board on Pinterest, and you all can join in and add your pins. You don't even need to have a blog. As long as you have a host for your photos (like Flickr or Picasaweb), you can jump in.
To join the board you'll need to do two things (Pinterest rules...):
(1) Follow me on Pinterest
(2) Comment here or on any of my pins on Pinterest, with your Pinterest name, so that I can send you an invite to join the board.

That's it for now, have a great weekend (what's left of it...), don't forget to join the fantastic water slide giveaway!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't want to miss a thing? Follow me!