Nappy cake for surprise baby shower

Daughter number 2 is 36 weeks pregnant. Surprising we managed to organise a baby shower for her without her guessing anything!

I only ever heard about nappy cakes (diaper cakes) a few months ago. Daughter number 3 wanted us to make one for the baby shower. We googled for ideas and instructions. It was fun! Surprising how many nappies it took, 2½ packets of size 2.

Started by rolling up the nappies and attaching with elastic bands.

There needs to be something in the middle that the nappies go around. We had seen photos of bottles being used for that. But I took a cardboard roll that had been in the centre of a roll of fabric. We attached baby grows around it. You could put all sorts of baby things in the middle of the cake.

Each row of nappies needs to be tied securely. We first put an elastic band and slipped the nappies inside it. When the row was finished, we tied it with a cord at two different places.

We ended up with 4 layers. The top layer only contains one row of nappies and there are no baby grows there anymore to pad it.

To finish we put a teddy bear at the top of the cake. The poor teddy didn't stay there until I stuck a metal knitting needle into him!

The tying cords are covered with ribbons and bows, whatever you come up with. The baby to be born is a boy so we had blue ribbons. We also used tiny socks and a pair of baby shoes to decorate the cake.

We wanted one of the layers have a different decoration. I sewed a pompom ribbon on white fabric.

The bottom part of the finished cake:

Part of the programme at the baby shower was a guessing game: when will the baby be born and what size will he be.  I just hope he won't be as late as his mum who was born 19 days late!