Nappy Cake Tutorial

 I love receiving homemade gifts, and in turn also love to make them for friends. 

Over the weekend I went to a friend's baby shower. I am all about giving practical gifts, so wanted to get nappies, wipes, lotion- things that will be needed. There's no easy or pretty way to wrap these items up, so I decided to make a nappy cake.

I looked at a few images online and decided I prefer the look of a traditional rolled nappy cake. I couldn't find a website with clear instructions so I improvised and designed my own. My friend already had found out the sex of her baby so I used colour themed accessories to brighten up the cake.

The basis of the cake is nappies and baby wipes, then you can add whatever else you like. They beauty of this gift is you can make it 1 or 2 tiers, depending on your choice and budget. This cake was very much trial and error,  though I had a clear idea of how I wanted it to look. I purchased a blue teddy bear to go on top and structured my idea on that. In the end the cake looked small compared to the teddy so I added another row of nappies around each layer. If you want a small cake, I recommend buying a small toy for the top.

The baby products and outfits used in the cake can be varied

Here's what you will need:

Nappies  (Around 72 for a small cake, 97 for a large]
A packet of baby wipes
A teddy bear or toy (For the topper)
Baby wash
Baby shampoo
Nappy cream (Or any other baby products)
Muslin wrap
Baby hat
Onesie
Small elastic bands, and 2 large
2 metres of thick ribbon
Cellophane
Cake board
Cardboard letters


Open the nappy packet and grab out a  nappy. With the front of the nappy facing up and the open part toward you, roll the nappy up tightly. Secure with an elastic band. Repeat this process for all of the remaining nappies.

Roll each nappy up tightly.

All ready to go!

Then place the packet of nappy wipes on it's side. This forms the core of the cake and gives it solidarity. Place a large elastic band around the packet. This is to hold the nappies in place around the outside.

Place a large elastic band around the packet first, then add the nappies around the outside.

Pull the large elastic band towards you and in the gap, slot the nappies around one by one. This will be the base. Add more nappies around the outside until you are happy with the size of the cake. I made the base 3 nappies wide.

Now for the second layer. Start the second layer as the first, by adding another large elastic band around the packet of wipes. Keep adding nappies around the outside until it is the size you want. I did this tier 1 nappy wide.

Second tier. 

Now you can start adding the baby products and accessories to go on your cake. Play around with it and see what you like the best. Add some ribbon and its good to go.

Here's how I finished it off: I took out a couple of nappies from the front and added the baby wash and powder. At this stage I thought the large teddy looked out of place on the top, so I decided to add another row of nappies to both the bottom and top layers. 

There are 97 nappies in this cake.

Because of the extra layers I added the cake no longer fit on a regular cake board. Luckily hubby had an old MDF tabletop in the garage and painted it white for me. I chose to put the baby powder, wash, hat and onesie around the bottom. I tucked these into the large elastic band first. Then I folded up the muslin wrap and used it around the top layer. The teddy was then place on top, with the baby cream secured with some masking tape. I wrapped ribbon around the outside of each layer to cover up the elastic and added some cardboard letters to the board.

Then the entire thing was wrapped in cellophane and tied with a ribbon to hold it in place.  I forgot to take an earlier photo of it wrapped, so this was taken on my way to the party. 

This was a really fun and fairly easy to make project, plus it was made for a fraction of the cost of buying one.

Congratulations to the Mum-to-be!