How To Make A Diaper Cake

Vintage Winnie The Pooh Diaper Cake

Creating a diaper cake is a delightful and practical gift for any baby shower! I love that this gift can both be a beautiful and unique centrepiece. It is also a practical gift that the parents-to-be will definitely put to good use! It is an affordable gift that will go a long way in helping out new parents. So, you might be wondering how to make a diaper cake.

There are different methods that can be used to make a diaper cake. The most common, might be the rolled-up method. With the rolled-up method, you roll each diaper individually and then assemble the cake from there. I find this method to be tedious and leaves you with deformed diapers at the end. Not to mention that the mom or dad will have to sit there and unroll each diaper individually, something that takes time and, as we know, time and energy are scarce in the first few weeks of baby’s life.

The method I will be sharing with you today is made without the traditional rolling of diapers, saving time and effort for all. It’s the fanned or swirl method, where you stager or overlap flat diapers one on top of the other and wrap them around a central support.

Fanned diapers in a cake pan used as a mold

So, if you’re looking for a great baby shower gift, that is truly customizable, please read ahead for a step-by-step guide on how to make a diaper cake. You will then be equipped with the knowledge to achieve a truly stunning gift that can also be a unique centrepiece at the baby shower.

what you will need

Diaper Cake Elements
  • Diapers: You will need about 50-75 diapers for 3 tiered cake. I chose to use Pampers swaddlers diapers because that is what we used with our kids. We loved how reliable and comfortable they were. I also chose to use size 1, because newborn babies come in all different shapes and sizes. I figured most babies would unlikely outgrow size 1 diapers right away. They would fit smaller and bigger babies, as well as babies that grow a little faster than others.
  • Cake Pans: For my three tiered cake, I used three different sizes of cake pans. A 10″, 8″ and 6″ round cake pan. You want to use cake pans that are slightly smaller than each other, in order to achieve that traditional tiered cake look. Alternatively, if you don’t have cake pans in different sizes, you can cut longer strips of cardboard and bend them into circles and use that as your forms.
  • Rubber bands: You will need 3 rubber bands. A larger one and two regular sized. These will be used to hold your diapers in place after you are done wrapping them. If you don’t have rubber bands, you can use string to secure your diapers in place.
Finished first tier of diaper cake, secured with rubber band.
  • Wrapping paper roll: You need something to hold your tiers in place and to keep them from shifting. You will place this tube down the centre of the cake. The inside part of the wrapping paper, the cardboard roll or tube, is perfect because it’s long enough and you can cut it down to size. You want to cut it so it is flush with the top tier of your cake. If you don’t have any wrapping paper on hand, the dollar store has cheaper wrapping paper. Alternatively, you can also tape together two paper towel rolls, to form one longer tube.
  • Glue gun: A glue gun will enable you to secure all your decorations in place.
  • Decorations: Before you start assembling your cake, it is a good idea to decide on the theme. What colours will you be using? Will you be adding flowers, ribbons, stuffed animals, etc? Pinterest is a great place to get ideas. Figure all that out and then gather your supplies. My theme was vintage Winnie the Pooh. Our friends chose to keep the baby’s gender as a surprise and so I used a lot of whites, yellows and greens. I used minimal supplies for maximum impact. I went on etsy and got these super cute Winnie the Pooh characters. I got them printed on thick card stock, cut some them out and glued them on little sticks, to use as my cake topper.
Winnie the Pooh Characters from Etsy
Winnie the Pooh Characters on sticks, used as a cake topper.
  • Cake stand: After you’ve assembled your diaper cake and decorated it, you will want to display it nicely. This can be done by using a nice cake stand or any other elevated surface.

How to make a diaper Cake

  • Step 1: Take a couple of diapers and start lining the cake pan along the exterior edge. Add a diaper at time spacing them out about 1″-2″. Keep wrapping until you fill up the whole cake pan. Make sure you leave enough space in the middle to place your cardboard tube but don’t leave too much space. You want the tube to fit in nice and snug, so the cake is secure.
First tier of diapers with central support.
  • Step 2: Place your elastic band around all the diapers. Remove your tier slowly from the cake pan and place to the side.
  • Step 3: Repeat steps 1 & 2 for the other two tiers.
  • Step 4: Place your cardboard tube in the middle of the bottom tier and stack the other two tiers on top of that. Mark on the cardboard roll how high your cake goes. Remove the tube to trim it down and then place it back in the middle of the cake.
Assembling the diaper cake
  • Step 5: Start decorating. You will want to start by adding a wide ribbon around the rubber bands to hide them. You can then start building from there. I avoided using the glue gun directly on the diapers, as I did not want to damage them. I only used the hot glue gun to secure the ribbons on to themselves and the decorations that sat on top of the ribbon. The flowers and characters I used were secure by tucking everything in between the layers. This made it that it was easy to disassemble and didn’t leave any diapers damaged.
Adding the decorations to the diaper cake without any glue.

And there you have it folks! That’s how easy it is to make a diaper cake! Have fun with it and use your imagination! If you like to be creative and love to give hand made gifts, this is the perfect fit. I hope you give it a shot! If you do, please leave a comment down below!