How to make a Nappy Cake

A Nappy Cake is simply a baby gift that is made to resemble a cake made from nappies and other baby items. They are a great gift for a baby shower or as a new baby gift. They come in all shapes, sizes and colours and are very easy for you to make at home.

You don’t need any special tools or talents, but you will need some time and patience.

To start you will at least need all or some of the following –
 A silver or white cake board – preferably round and about 12 inches in diameter
 2 baby blankets or towels
 Nappies
 A tall bottle of baby wash or baby shampoo
 3 pairs of baby socks
 1 muslin cloth
 1 baby sleepsuit
 1 soft toy
 Ribbon
 1 packet of paper shreds or shredded tissue
 Elastic bands
 Florist tape and lengths of florist wire
 Baby clothing such as hats, bibs, bodysuits etc
 If you are making for a girl some artificial flowers will give your cake a nice finish.

Now that you have everything you need start by rolling up all the nappies, just lay the nappy down in the same position that it comes out of the pack, start from the short end and roll it up securing it with a rubber band. Do this for all the nappies and then set to one side. You can use Huggies nappies or general nappies from your supermarket.

Place your bottle of baby shampoo or powder upright in the middle of the cake board- this will become the anchor to help hold the bottom and middle tiers of the cake together. Take the larger size nappies, stand them on their ends in a close circle around the bottle and place an elastic band around the whole ring to hold it all together. Make another ring around this inner ring until you have 2 rings around the bottle. If you want to add more clothing to the cake like bibs and onesies, roll them up like the nappy and pop them in the circle in place of a nappy. Secure the second ring with an elastic band.

To start the second tier of your cake – the bottle will be a part of the second tier as well, as with the first tier take your nappies and stand them on their ends around the bottle – this time you will have just one ring. Pop an elastic band around the whole tier. Your anchor bottle will probably only come half way up the second tier so take a onesie and roll it like a large sausage, pop this into the hole above the bottle – this will now be your anchor for the top tier.

Now use the smaller size nappies and make a ring around the onesie using an elastic band to hold the ring together.

You now have an undecorated 3 tier nappy cake. To decorate each tier, you now need to take it off the cake. Using one of the baby blankets or towels fold it in half and half again until it is just a little bigger than the height of the nappies. While holding the tier on its side place it on top of your blanket at one end and roll it around the tier. Once wrapped all the way around secure it with an elastic band on the outside.

Do the same procedure for the second and third tiers using the muslin cloth for the top tier.
Reassemble your cake carefully slotting the anchors back in place.

Take your shredded tissue or paper shreds and use them to fill any gaps between the tiers and over the top tier covering the nappies – think of this as your icing. Now take your soft toy and place it at the top of the cake.

Using the baby socks in turn roll them up from the toes to the cuffs to resemble a rose – secure with an elastic band. Using the florist wire insert it into the sock from the bottom, with the florist tape wrap it around the sock from half way down covering the elastic band and working all the way down the sock to the wire to hold it in place. Repeat with all pairs of socks.

Move some of the shredded paper on the top tier and insert the *stems* in between the nappies so your flowers rest on or near the soft toy. Cover any gaps with shredded paper.

Now you can decorate your tiers with ribbon, wrapped around each tier with a bow at the front. For extra *wow* wrap your cake in cellophane and decorate with lots of curled ribbon.

Making a Nappy Cake tips brought to you by My Baby Gifts. Nappy cakes are fun to make, and are a wonderful personalised gift that you can make yourself. If time is against your side and you’d prefer to leave it in the hands of experienced nappy cake designers the team at My Baby Gifts has been creating unique nappy cakes for almost 10 years and can help.