Project Monsters Inc Baby Shower - The Diaper Cake

So, I have been off the grid for a while.
I have had a lot going on and not a whole lot to share on here, unfortunately.

But, coming soon is our baby shower.
With that, I will have lots of projects in the next 2 weeks in preparation.

The first project is the diaper cake
I haven't finished it, so I will either be updating this post later with the rest of the final touches or I will write a new post to include it. Most likely, the former.

Here are the photos to show what I have so far!
Enjoy!

 Here are most of the materials and costs

-cake pans (I used a 10x2 and 8x2) $20 (will also be using them to bake the party cake)

-rubber bands $.70 (only used 4 rubber bands of this whole bag)

-box of diapers $35 (used 3/4 of a box of 88 diapers)

-receiving blankets $12 (only used 2 of the 4 in the package)

-ribbon $10 (only used a small portion, but had to buy the whole spool)

-safety pins $? (had them in my craft box)

-small figurines $8

-small cardboard paper roll (paper towel or toilet paper) $0 (recycle!)

 I placed the diapers in the cake pans a few at a time and tried to evenly space them around to create a kind of pinwheel effect. This left a small hole in the middle, which I filled with the cardboard roll to make it more sturdy. Then, I took 2 rubber bands and put it around it all to hold it together. Pampers has that yellow line in the middle on the front (to help you tell when a newborn is wet) so I lined them up with that to be a the halfway point. I used about 40 newborn size diapers to fill this pan.

 I did the same for the smaller pan, but there wasn't really any space in the middle.  I made sure to put as many as I could fit in there (about 24 fit this pan) to make it as sturdy as possible. I then put 2 rubber bands around it just like I did the other layer.

 This is how it looks undecorated.

 I took a receiving blanket in the theme of the party (monsters inc) and wrapped it and shoved the ends into the empty cardboard roll to create a look of "fondant" or icing.

 The top layer didn't have the roll to tuck in edges and was very big to try to pin (ended up with a bunch of bulges everywhere), so I folded it in half 2 times longways and wrapped around the outside. I then secured it with one rubber band to hold it together. I originally was going to use safety pins to secure, but it was making a lot of holes in the receiving blanket, which I didn't like.

 Next, I cut ribbon to match the color scheme of the party. I made it just over long enough to wrap around the circumference tightly, then secured it with a safety pin. Since I was using 2 types of ribbon, I wrapped the second layer and safety pinned that one as well and secured it to the first layer.

I repeated that process for the smaller "cake" and put it on top of the larger "cake"

Next will be decoration. 

I am looking up ideas on line and gathering materials for how I would like to decorate it.

All in all, this project was quite easy to do.

I would love to experiment more with these in the future, if given the occasion.

Look for more updates soon as I work on more projects!

**Update**
Here is the top of the cake
I may add some ribbon or something the day of the shower, but it is pretty much done.
My first attempt wasn't too bad I suppose
The "roses" are washcloths (learned how to fold from tutorials online)
The top is a Sully blanket from Babies R Us that has a rattle attached.
It's (the blankie and rattle portion) held up with another toilet paper roll to prevent it from falling over when moved.