June 4, 2012

how to make a turtle-shaped diaper cake

My husband's cousin is having her first baby (a boy) in August and is a bit of a turtle enthusiast ...  So, for her shower, I wanted to get creative and make her a turtle-shaped "diaper cake."

As I searched the internet for inspiration, I noticed two things ...

First, although there are many great pictures of finished turtle "cakes," I could not find a free turtle tutorial anywhere.

Second, from reading the descriptions of finished turtle-shaped "cakes" and tutorials that could be purchased, it seemed as if all of them were meant to become keepsakes ... That is, they were held together with glue, ultimately making the diapers and other components unusable.

Since I'm up for a challenge (and I've been feeling crafty lately), I decided to give my own "turtle diaper cake" a try ...  And, in the spirit of practicality, I made sure that all the baby items used to assemble the turtle could later be used by my husband's cousin and her newborn son.

On with the tutorial ...

Making the upper shell: 

Starting with the open end of the diaper, I rolled seven diapers and secured them in the middle with rubber bands.


Next I arranged those rolled diapers in a circle (with one diaper in the middle and the remaining six around it) and held that configuration together with another rubber band.


To create the top of the upper shell, I opened and flattened out another diaper and covered the top of the seven rolled diapers.  I used another rubber band to secure it in place.


Next, to give some depth to the shell, I took four more diapers, fully opened them, and then rolled them lengthwise.  I layered and wrapped them around the bottom of rolled diaper shell piece and secured them with a large rubber band.



To complete the upper shell, I opened folded diapers (six in total) and fed them up to the crease under a rubber band that was stretched around the top of the central shell piece.  With the rubber band securing the crease of the inside of the diaper, I folded the rest of the diaper back down.




Four more diapers (folded lengthwise), were added on top of the original ring of folded diapers to help "pad" the very bottom of the shell even more and to make it protrude a bit more than the very top ...



Once in place, and working in a counter-clockwise fashion, I used the tabs on the diapers to secure them to the central piece, thus completing the upper shell.



Making the lower shell (including the head, tail, and feet):

In order to avoid gluing any pieces, I started by taking a basic paper plate and taping three diapers (opened and rolled lengthwise) along the edge ... I played with this a bit, making sure that the final upper shell would sit nicely on top of the plate, with the rolled diapers protruding from below.



At the front, I created a large arch with the diaper so that the turtle's head (a styrofoam craft ball wrapped in a baby washcloth and secured with straight pins) could be attached (via safety pins) to the paper plate underneath.


I also secured the tail (a rolled baby washcloth) on the plate opposite of the head.


For the feet, I used four baby socks (stuffed with plastic from some baby socks I had received for Pearl) and secured them with embroidery floss to the plate from below.

Putting it all together:

Lastly, to hold the upper and lower shell pieces together, I embellished the turtle with ribbon and other various craft items (as well as some additional small baby gifts).  This was also useful in covering up any "flaws" or portions that did not look as nice as I would have liked ...






Overall, I was pretty pleased with my final "turtle diaper cake."  It was fun to try and figure out how to make everything work (and stay together), while creating something that still looked good and was, ultimately, usable.

Definitely a fun little weekend project!

18 comments:

  1. This is awesome!! Just what I was looking for! My DIL and son are having a baby boy and the nursery theme is turtles! Thank you so much for sharing!!

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  2. Wow this is great! my daughter having a tortoise and snails theme for shower and this is perfect thanks for sharing!!

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  3. I like your style...I also think outside the box.

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  4. Thank you so much this helped me out a lot when my family asked me what type of dipper cake i wanted for my baby shower i just showed them this and they all laughed and loved the idea.

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  5. It's always nice that crafters share their ideas willingly instead of making fellow crafters pay for them. I had a request for this but wasn't sure if it could be done. Thank you very much for your ideas!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This article was great in suggesting new brands and
    styles to try out.
    , I thought this article was suppose
    to help those of us who have never used diapers,
    Thank you so much for this comprehensive list!
    I have read many reviews and done a ton of research
    . This has helped me make decisions
    on diapers.I am completely happy with your website
    . All comments and articles
    are very useful and very good. Your blog is very
    careful-take control.
    I am loving all of the inside ,

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you so much for the instructions on the turtle diaper cake! I finished mine today for my niece's shower and it is adorable. The only thing I changed was I stuffed the socks for the turtle's feet with other baby socks (I bought a large pack of socks so that all my turtle feet were the same). I put all the other socks into the turtle's feet.

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  8. Hey..!

    Its awesome..!

    First of I want to say that you have really cute family. I also want to add that seems like you did really work on your posts. Keep coming with this type of great posts. We also selling the Diapercakes . Hope you will also like some of our design. Thank you,!

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  9. What size of diapers did you use and how many diapers total? Love this and want to attempt to make one ;)

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  10. LilBabyCakes
    Lil' Baby Cakes delivers unique diaper cakes the new mom will love. We offer diaper cakes for sale online over the last 14 years with an A+ BBB rating. All diaper cakes are handmade and can be order and shipped in 48 hours or less.
    4938 Bruce Street
    Saint Louis, MO 63101
    ettamunter@gmail.com
    314-277-0496

    ReplyDelete
  11. We're always gently nurturing new ideas, gifts and designs in the Diaper Cake nursery.

    ReplyDelete
  12. wonderful first time see this unique tortoise theme thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Lil' Baby Cakes
    Lil' Baby Cakes delivers unique diaper cakes the new mom will love. We offer diaper cakes for sale online over the last 14 years with an A+ BBB rating. All diaper cakes are handmade and can be order and shipped in 48 hours or less.
    Bobby N. Scoggins
    4938 Bruce Street
    Stlouis, MO 63101
    ettamunter@gmail.com
    314-277-0496

    ReplyDelete
  14. Lil Baby Cakes

    Lil Baby Cakes delivers unique diaper cakes the new mom will love. We offer diaper cakes for sale online over the last 14 years with an A+ BBB rating. All diaper cakes are handmade and can be order and shipped in 48 hours or less.
    Bobby N. Scoggins
    4938 Bruce Street
    Stlouis, MO 63101
    ettamunter@gmail.com
    314-277-0496

    ReplyDelete
  15. Lil' Baby Cakes delivers unique diaper cakes the new mom will love. We offer diaper cakes for sale online over the last 14 years with an A+ BBB rating. All diaper cakes are handmade and can be order and shipped in 48 hours or less.
    Bobby N. Scoggins
    4938 Bruce Street
    Saint Louis, MO 63101
    ettamunter@gmail.com
    314-277-0496

    ReplyDelete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. What size was the styrofoam ball did you use I am trying to make this cute cake for my son and daughter in law for their baby shower.

    ReplyDelete
  18. You did a good job... unfortunately I was wondering if you knew that taking this diaper turtle design and publishing it free is a copyright infringement? This design is copyrighted through the U.S. Library of Congress, which means it's property of diaperzoo.com LLC so you are not allowed to publish the instructions for free to the public. I am the designer/author of this design. You cannot claim that you designed it either. Sorry, I don't mean to get snippy about it, but as much time, creativity, money, and legal red tape that it takes to design each one, write the instructional books, copyright and post the instructions, then someone gets my instructions that came from my "crazy brain" and claims it's their design and posts it for free? That's not legal. I would appreciate your getting ahold of me as soon as possible. Just go to www.diaperzoo.com and click the "contact us" page, and send me a message as soon as possible, I would greatly appreciate it. If you would like to refer to my design, please copy and paste this into your web browser;
    http://www.diaperzoo.com/critter_detail.php?critter_id=1
    I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete