Purple Carriage

I love getting new challenges! One of the great things about diaper cakes is that they are such a great visual and decoration in addition to being practical and useful. A lot of times they are incorporated into baby shower decorations. One thing I'm really trying to break into is complete baby shower sets. Sort of a complete done for you, baby shower in a box, so to speak. Several years ago, I had a customer send me a diaper cake request to coordinate with some digital invitations she had used for the shower she was planning. I loved that idea. Coordinating a baby shower top to bottom is definitely in my wheelhouse. At the time, including invitations was not something I had developed the skills for, but these days, it's all part of what I can offer.

I love a cohesive baby shower - one where the invitations, decorations, food, and thank you cards all coordinate. It takes planning, but it makes everything so nice and shows the expectant mama how special she is to those hosting the shower. I love to create these complete sets and had the opportunity to really explore it further as time went on, but when this cake was created, I was still new to it.

The chosen design was an adorable grey and purple carriage invitation. At the time, it was actually quite difficult to find purple baby items. Since baby items, colors, and themes change over time, it occasionally can be a challenge to find exactly what I need. If you've been following my blog though, you know I love a good challenge and I try not to limit myself with nay-saying, I stick with it and so far, I've figured out a way to make it all work.

This cake was another big one. 4-tiers tall. It looks rather lavish in my opinion, but it was actually quite simple. The base was, of course, my standard spiral design. To avoid clashing patterns from the invitation, I kept it simple with a "naked" cake and reflected the invitation patterns (grey chevron and purple with white dots) in the ribbons I used. At the top of the invitation, a vintage baby carriage was featured, so I added carriage die cuts to various locations on the cake. By request, I also personalized the cake with a badge reflecting the baby's name. Multiple baby items were included which I finally was able to find in varying shades of purple. I got a bit creative using socks as a topper which turned out adorable. Finally, I added a homemade crochet beanie to finish it out.

I absolutely love the way this cake turned out. I love comparing it with the invitation and seeing how well they work together. It was well received by my customer who was so excited at how closely I was able to incorporate the details on the invitation with the diaper cake. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity. Even though now I have the skills to create invitations myself, I'm so happy to see that I can create a diaper cake to coordinate with a theme that someone may have found elsewhere and I can offer additional decorations to match if the individual that created the invitation doesn't offer diaper cakes and other shower decorations. Very exciting prospects to say the least!

School Spirit!

In an attempt to show examples of diaper cakes that were school or team spirit based, I grabbed several items I had for my own kiddos and put together several example cakes and gifts to demonstrate what something of that nature would look like and let my potential customers know it was possible to make a diaper cake that showed loyalty to their favorite school or team. Thus was created my "Fan Series." These example cakes were created more than two years ago - I remember because I was in the middle of working on them when my labor started with my second son. Needless to say, I ended up finishing the project after the baby was born. In any case, that was the last time I created a diaper cake for a specific team, until a couple months ago when I was approached to make an LSU Tigers cake. Now, this hurt me a little since I'm an Aggie, but I had to be a good sport and I was excited about creating another team cake to add to my collection.

The LSU cake was a 2-tier "naked" cake. I found some awesome options for ribbon and finally settled on a purple ribbon with tiger and LSU logos on it. The rest of the cake was adorned with purple and gold items. I'm glad I found a supplier of dark purple washcloths because darker colors are not typical among baby items. To top the diaper cake, I found an adorable plush tiger. I also added several paw print die-cut accents in purple and gold to finish out the cake.

Now, you may notice that one of the differences between this cake and my other Fan Series cakes to date is that the decorations and color scheme created the theme rather than the baby items themselves. One big thing to remember when it comes to baby items (or other items in general) is that licensed or specialty items typically come with added costs. For those on a tighter budget or those that prefer to keep the theme more subtle, incorporating items in the chosen colors and a few theme specific decorative accents can present the theme just as effectively. It really leads to a decent amount of flexibility so a gift can be created for a whole range of budgets and personal preferences.

My customer really liked the cake which is awesome. I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to make a team spirit cake and I look forward to helping more expectant parents celebrate their teams and share their spirit with their new additions - especially if they are Aggies.
.

Another Baby Cake...

The time had come for another shower among my mom group and that meant making another baby cake since the expectant mom was a cloth diapering mom. This time around, I got to try my hand at a project (or several) for a little girl. Ever in search of new ways to use my skills and new items to add to my product line, I decided to make a tagged lovey for this mama - or her baby, rather. I set out to begin my nursery set which would be formed into a baby cake similar to others I'd made for cloth diapering mamas.

The base of the cake was a set of 3 taggy blocks similar to ones I'd made for other baby cakes seen here. I used cotton flannel in various shades of purple (a color requested by the mom) and super cuddly purple material on some panels to add extra texture. My next project was outer wrappings for the cake like how I add blankets to some of my diaper cakes. For this cake, I created the tagged lovey, a small blanket with ribbon tags added for sensory stimulation. Loveys make great gifts since babies can carry them around as a security items without dragging a large blanket with them, and of course, babies love tags! I used the same flannel material that I used for the tagged blocks and the matching super cuddly purple material for the backing of the lovey. My next project was coordinating burp cloths using the same flannel I'd used in the previous projects.

With the items for the main cakes structure completed, I then went on to make the added decorations for the cake. I adjusted the basic beanie pattern that I often use to create an adorable scalloped hat with some open rows, a popular design these days that is often paired with flower or bow hair clips. Other items I added to the cake for decoration included lavender washcloth daisies, a pair of socks, and a handmade purple ribbon bow.

The final cake was beautiful. It was a lot of purple. The mama really enjoyed it and that is what's most important!

Repeating designs

Many diaper cake makers are adept at creating a design that can be repeated or they stock up on supplies and are able to make several cakes of a single design. Up until recently, that wasn't something I had ever done. Since most of my cakes are made individually and items are often purchased specifically for each cake, repeating designs is dependent on available items at a later date. In most cases, there really isn't an issue. Making custom cakes has served me well and it means that expectant moms are sure to receive a unique gift.

But what if a customer wants a design I've made before? Or what if a design is popular and a customer wants something similar, if not necessarily the same thing? I never gave it much thought until I was contacted by a woman who really liked my cupcake cake, but wanted it in different colors.

The original chocolate and
pink cupcake diaper cake

When I first received the request, I was a bit worried. The colors selected for the original cake corresponded with the colors in the cupcake blanket which was the base of my design. Chocolate and pink seemed to go with the blankets naturally, so those are the colors I selected for the cake. This new request was for pink and lavender. After a bit of brainstorming, I discovered a way to repeat a similar design while meeting the request for the alternate colors.

Lavender was incorporated
into decorations on the cake

While the colors for the cupcake blanket were fixed, I did have options where I accented the cake with decorations. The basic design of the cake was easy enough to repeat adding the cupcakes on the large tier and a cupcake for the topper, all made with usable baby items, of course. By using socks for the smaller cupcakes, I was able to incorporate lavender and pink. The large cupcake topper also had lavender from washcloths. By adding lavender and pink ribbon to decorate the tiers, I was able to unify the overall look of the cake. I also had a new method for applying the pom pom "cherries" to this cake without having to worry about glue or pins, a challenge I had with the original cake.

The end product came out great and my customer loved it. The door is certainly open for possibly repeating or adapting designs in the future. I certainly am more open to it now that I've done it once. Certainly, not all can be adapted, but some can and it's exciting to see the possibilities!

The BIG Challenge: Geek Chic

Ok, so here it is! My biggest challenge ever! Well, that is until someone else decides it's fun to keep me on my toes...

So, a friend of mine sent me a message and asked how I felt about making a geek cake. Being a self-proclaimed geek myself, my initial response was, sure! Why not? Then I started really thinking about it. How on earth was I going to do that? There are a number of geeky type baby items available on the market, that's for sure. The thing is, many of them spread the whole gamut of geekdom. There may be one thing here and one thing there regarding various aspects of games, TV, etc. that is considered geeky. There really isn't one area that has several baby items. Additionally, the expectant parents were big into StarCraft, a real-time strategy computer game that luckily I had played the original version so I was familiar with it. They liked the game so much, they were naming their baby after one of the character names. So, what I really wanted to do was to make a diaper cake that incorporated that particular game. While I was researching, I found that it would be next to impossible. I found one baby item relating to the game and it would be quite cost prohibitive to order and ship it for a single item to add to the cake. I told my friend that the likelihood of me incorporating the game was slim and asked for color schemes and whatnot so I could keep brainstorming. The colors were brown, green, and purple. Although the parents were having a girl, they wanted no pink.

This is a rough drawing of a pylon.
Don't know what I was thinking...

My first thought was to make the cake in the form of a pylon - a power crystal from the game. After many attempts at figuring out stability for said cake, I decided it was not going to work. Not only that, finding baby items to add would throw off the look and as the power crystal is blue and the components yellow, it was nowhere near the colors the parents wanted.

I went back to the drawing board. I thought I'd do some printable transfers. I could make some burp cloths with binary or geeky phrases on them. After trying different sizes and fonts and figuring out exactly how this idea would work, I scrapped it. Why? Well, I realized that as cute as it would make the burp cloth, an image printed and transferred on would work much better on clothing than a piece of fabric that you intend to soak up messes and something that needs to maintain it's absorbency. I was so close to throwing in the towel and just skipping the geek theme and going with the colors the parents selected. As I mused about my options, I was reminded of the cake I had made not too long ago where I crocheted squashed and gourds. I figured I could crochet a plush topper for the cake!

My crocheted Baneling with an inset of one like you'd
see in the game.

I researched several of the characters, critters, and other items from the game trying to come up with one for the plush topper. I considered a pylon since it seemed simple enough, but the colors were all wrong to go with the cake. I found another critter, called a Baneling and decided that would be my plushie! It's an ugly critter, really, but that's ok, because it works within the realm of the game, would be easy enough to create (ok, I suppose that's relative since I had to come up with the pattern on my own), and would be recognizable for what it was. Not to mention, it could be made in colors to coordinate with the cake. Win all around! While the actual crocheting was a challenge and getting it to look like I wanted, it did come together.

Three burp cloths. Custom hand embroidery.
I may, in fact, be a little crazy.

So, one plush critter was certainly not enough to make this a StarCraft cake. I then decided I could do some embroidery. Sure, I hadn't done it since I was a kid, but I had most of the supplies and with this option I could make a really custom gift. Or gifts. The game has three races that you can play, so I decided I'd embroider (and by that I mean by hand, since I don't have a machine) three burp cloths, one for each race in the game using their race logos. Now, the color thing did cause a bit of a problem, as I couldn't make them match the colors in the game with the colors the parents wanted, but I did it as close as I could. One race is purple, so that worked out. The second, the logo was yellow, so I used green for that one. The third race's logo was red and black, so for that one, I used brown. The embroidery was certainly a challenge and it was a bit of a learning curve, or re-learning curve, if you will. In the end, they came out quite nicely although, if I continue to do some hand embroidery I'll have to look into different tips and ideas to make it a bit easier on myself.

So, after the very custom, handmade items were complete, it was finally time to build the cake! I made a large 3-tier cake using the spiral style of cake. I added large flannel blankets to each of the tiers. I then added some general baby items, washcloths and head bands, and of course, all of my custom items which also included a onsie that declared, "N00B" (a common word/insult in the gaming world) in coordinating iron-on lettering. The final cake was definitely something to be proud of!

Front of the Geek Chic cake

Back of the Geek Chic cake

I was so excited about this cake! I could not wait to hand it off to my friend that ordered it, but sadly, the baby was born early (she's fine, and home, by the way) and the shower was postponed. I did finally get it to my friend and it was of course, a hit! She was so excited that I was able to incorporate the game even though at first I thought it would be impossible. The recipient I hear, also thoroughly enjoyed the cake, so it was a huge success!

I was definitely stretched to the limit on this one. I have never had a bigger challenge, but I'm so glad that I was able to meet it! I now know that with all of the craft skills I possess, I have even fewer limitations when it comes to making diaper cakes. This is a wonderful way to make my mark in the business and I'm very excited about what the future holds!

A beautiful bouquet

Many diaper cakes I've seen contain diaper tiers and are lavishly decorated with silk flowers and ribbons. They are really beautiful all things considered. The thing that keeps me from designing this type of diaper cake is that the decorations add cost to the final product, but don't necessarily add to the value. I prefer to use baby items to decorate and embellish the cakes so the new mom has more items at her disposal.

Recently, however, I decided to see if I could meld the two concepts. In the past, I have made baby bouquets using washcloths and socks to resemble flowers and presenting them in baskets and vases. In one cake, I used some socks in rose form for embellishment. I wanted to take it one step further though and make the flowers more central to the cake decoration.

For this initial experiment, I wanted to see how a flower bouquet would work for a cake topper. I used washcloths to make several roses and some washcloths with baby utensils to make calla lillies and gathered them into a bouquet that then embellished the top of a one tier cake. More washcloths were used for the bouquet base to emulate leaves for the bouquet. I didn't add a ton of other decorations since I was focusing on the bouquet, but the tier was wrapped with prefold cloth diapers/burp cloths and then decorated with simple ribbon.

The cake turned out beautifully. I really am happy with the final look and from this I will probably work on cleaning up the appearance of the flowers and perhaps experimenting with having the flowers cascade down the cake. As excited as I am about these prospects, there is one important factor I need to consider. This uses A LOT of washcloths. It's not bad, per se, just something to think about. I can't wait to experiment some more and see how it all turns out. I'm glad to offer a more "refined" look to the cakes I can make and still keep them functional.

Celebrating Moms

Most often at baby showers, the gifts given focus on the baby and rightly so. Typically, babies need a lot of things that most expectant parents don't have when they don't have children. Showers help the parents not only celebrate the new arrival with food and friends, but also provide an outlet to gather baby items that help to defray the costs of a new baby. Unfortunately, the needs of the baby aren't the only ones that are new to the changing family. The mom also requires a few things to help her out in her new status. A breastfeeding mom has many needs such as nursing tops and other breastfeeding support items. Aside from that, all moms could use the opportunity to relax and pamper themselves as labor and new motherhood, even when they have other children, is busy and stressful. Without taking care of herself, a mom can't possibly take care of her children. Inspired by these ideas and Mother's Day coming up this Sunday, I decided to create a diaper cake that not only provides a few baby items, but also focuses on the mom to help pamper and care for herself as she cares for her baby.

This cake, created to add to the collection of holiday gifts, like the others was built as a display cake to represent ideas that could be incorporated in a custom made cake. This two tier cake was started with a boutique style spiral cake. A large receiving blanket and prefold diapers/burp cloths were used to decorate the layers. The lower tier features a bib that declares love for mom. All of the additional items on the cake focus on the expectant mom herself. Various herbal tea samples for healing, wellness, and milk production are included. Also included are samples of nipple cream and stretch mark cream. The cake is topped with lanolin, a must-have for nursing moms. The cake is finished off with decorative crinkle paper and tied with decorative bows and curling ribbon.

A mom focused cake is rather versatile and can be put together whether the expected baby is a boy or girl or if the gender is unknown. While the basic structure of this type of diaper cake is going to provide baby focused items, the added accents and decorative aspects of the cake can focus entirely on the mom. I love the idea of pampering the mom as she so often gets overlooked with the upcoming arrival of a baby and she needs to be cared for just as much as the newborn. For your next diaper cake order, consider a mom pampering cake. Even if Mother's Day isn't right around the corner, it's a fantastic gesture and is sure to be appreciated by the new mom.

My First Order (Part II)

So, now that I've kept you guessing, I can continue on with pictures and more information on the building of my first order (especially now that the sip 'n' see has passed and everyone that was there has hopefully now seen the diaper cakes).

I'll start with the bouquet. The bouquet created a bit of a challenge as I found that the materials I had did not in fact provide a lot of lavender to go along with the colors chosen for the sip 'n' see. I had black, white, and lavender tissue paper for decorating around the bouquet and created a lavender bow to decorate the vase. The "flowers" however, needed a bit of tweaking to go with the color scheme. I solved the problem adding lavender ribbon to the wash cloths and diapers to bring in the extra color so all but one of the flowers was not white. These all came together nicely in the beautiful vase I had selected. The bouquet included 2 wash cloths, 2 diapers, and 2 body suits.

As usual, the cakes started with hand-rolled diapers. Size 3 diapers were selected for this cake since the baby had been born and this provided the mom with some larger size diapers when the baby grew into them. The layers were sacked and the blankets and sheets were wrapped around the layers. The added bulk of the crib sheets meant that to give a better varied layered look, I had to remove some diapers from the top tier, but I left as many as I could so as not to sacrifice the value of the diapers in the diaper cake.

Adding the extra decorations proved a little bit difficult. First, the cakes needed to match. Second, since the cakes were going to be used as centerpieces, possibly at a table where people would be sitting, I needed to decorate them all the way around. While the other cakes I had made were decorated only on the front and immediate sides, this one needed more added touches. Add in the lack of lavender and white items I was able to find and it proved to be quite a challenge.

I improvised a bit and created my first ever hair clips to add to the decorations. These were made with ribbon that coordinated with the diaper cakes. I made four hair clips. 2 each of white ribbon with lavender flowers, and 2 each of black and white striped ribbon. They made a perfect addition to the cakes, allowed me to match the cakes and added to the other decorations.

Another decoration I selected for these cakes was wash cloths. I had seen the technique used on diaper cakes before, but only in pictures and never on an actual cake. The effect turned out quite nice, and I'm likely to use it again in the future. For these cakes, I used two rolled wash cloths which were strategically placed along the seam of the receiving blankets on the lower cake layers. This is how I was able to provide attractive views not matter the angle the party guests were coming from.

I added yet another new decoration to the cake. This one included sock "roses" that adorned the bottom and top layers of the cake. One sock from each pair was used on each cake so the cakes matched. Together, the new mom had a total of 8 pairs of socks. 7 were used as sock roses and the 8th pair was used as additional decorations on the sides of the cakes (one sock per cake). I had used sock roses before in one of the bouquets I had made, but never as a decoration on a cake, but I like the effect it provided.

The cake toppers stumped me since the party was a France/Paris theme, I really wanted to do Eiffel Towers on the tops, but I didn't know how I'd be able to pull it off. Finding Eiffel Tower figurines is not terribly difficult, but most would be too big or heavy to act as the toppers. I also considered doing a small bouquet of sock roses, but I had difficulty arranging them so they looked right. I finally found some paper art that could be printed out and put together and thus, I was able to create the toppers I wanted. It provided and economical and attractive addition to the cakes. I printed it out on card stock so it would be sturdy and then built them up for two 3-dimensional towers. I used a longer dowel rod in the center of the cake than I normally would for a 2-tier cake, but it provided the support for the toppers and with the help of some lavender tissue paper, the wooden rod was hidden from view.

As you can see in the sneak peak from my previous post (as well as here to the side) I also included some extra embellishments in the form of plastic decorative pacifiers on the bows. I typically like to use mostly usable items to decorate the diaper cakes, but used in moderation, these types of additions can really add to the "wow factor". Since I'm constantly trying to add more aesthetic value to my cakes, I am likely to continue using some of these types of small additions in the future.

I used so many new decorations and embellishments on these diaper cakes, that I almost feel like I've reached the end of my creative rope, but I'm hoping that is not the case. I like to think I'm just building my skills for newer projects and improving on what I've done in the past. In the end I was very proud of how the whole project turned out and the friend of mine that ordered them seemed to really like what I had done. I asked for some pictures of the cakes at the event so with any luck, I can post some to see how they worked in with all the other party decorations. I hope they were well received by the guests and especially the new mom.

Here is the entire "collection" - the two cakes and the bouquet.

My First Order (Part I)

Not long after I set up my Facebook page and completed my big baby bouquet I received my first ever order. And it wasn't just a simple cake. This was a big order. I was super excited.

A friend of mine was planning a sip 'n' see for mid September and wanted two 2-tier diaper cakes for a large table and a bouquet for the guest book table. She wanted the cakes to be a low enough height that they could be seen over. The theme for the party was a French/Paris theme with the colors lavender, black, and white.

I was so excited and instantly had my ideas for the cakes. All it boiled down to was whether or not I could find the materials. I wanted to use lavender receiving blankets for the layers and decorate the rest of the cakes with lavender and white baby items. Black would be incorporated with the decorative ribbon, as finding baby items that are black is a difficult task.

Little did I know that finding lavender baby items seemed almost as difficult. This confused me a bit, since when I think of baby girl items I automatically think of pink and purple, but to my surprise, it is harder to find a large number of purple items than I originally thought. Most can be found in various shades of pink, even teals and mint green, but rarely purple. After much searching, I was finally able to find items that worked for the cake including receiving blankets, crib sheets, pacifiers, wash cloths, and socks.

Building the cakes came with its own challenges. I'd never worked with crib sheets before. They are thicker and more flexible than receiving blankets so it is a bit more difficult to give that smooth finished appearance that the blankets provide. Also, I needed to make both cakes the same, so balancing decorations and paying close attention to detail was a must.

I'll give more detail and provide many more pictures in the second part of my description of my first order, but for now, here's a bit of a teaser. A glimpse of part of the finished product:

A New Kind of Bouquet

With yet another expectant mom among my friends, I had another project ahead of me. I was asked to make a centerpiece for her shower and I was happy to oblige. This time, however, I decided that rather than make a diaper cake, I'd make a bouquet to go with the theme of the shower which was roses to welcome the baby whose middle name was to be Rosalinda.

I wanted to make a large bouquet as it was to be a centerpiece. I was excited to pick out some girl items (this was my second diaper gift for a girl) selecting purple, pink, and white socks to make roses, as well as purchasing diapers and wash cloths to make additional flowers.

To assist with the size of the bouquet and to add value, I decided the basket would be made of diapers rather than just purchasing a basket. I hand rolled the diapers and wove them together with pink ribbon to form a ring. I used a cake board as the base. I lined the inside of the basket with tissue paper, opting for purple to counter balance the pink ribbon in the basket, and then filled the inside with shredded paper in several shades of purple and pink and white. I then pieced together the bouquet of "flowers". With 6 pairs of socks, 6 wash cloths, and about 9 diapers (not counting the basket) the bouquet was rather large. During the process of building this bouquet, I did have to go through a little bit of trial and error to get the look just right. The diaper "flowers" had curling ribbon to spruce them up a bit and green ribbon was tied to the "stems" of several of the other "flowers" to give the appearance of leaves. The extra embellishments were well worth it, but I think they may have gone unnoticed because of the size of the bouquet and the presence of the tissue paper - basic visibility problems.

In the end, I was happy with the final result. I think if I repeat this concept of the diaper basket, I may make some alterations, but otherwise I was pleased. The expectant mom seemed to like it, so that is what matters in the end.

Move Over Boys

Along with all of the other people I knew that were expecting, I kept finding out about more. A friend and former co-worker from the city I was living in before I got married was due in March 2010. I was so excited since she was having a girl. That meant I could test my skill at a girl cake!

Without knowing when I'd be able to visit or take the two hour trip to see her, I was still determined to create a cake for my friend. I focused on choosing the decorations for the cake and selected a set of polka-dot receiving blankets which I was sure she'd love... I hoped. I had a bit of trouble finding a topper for the cake, but finally landed on an adorable disposable diaper bag dispenser with a duck on it. It would be perfect and easy to mount on the top of the cake.

Hand rolled diapers made the tiers of the cake. The blankets surrounded each of the three layers of the cake. I incorporated travel bath products into the layers. The duck bag dispenser worked perfectly as the topper and hidden from view was actually a refill roll of bags in addition to the one pre-loaded into the dispenser. Polka-dot ribbon was tied around each of the layers and finished with a bow. Four pairs of socks finished out the decorations on the cake.

I was so happy with the finished cake, and I hoped that the expectant mom would like it as well. I did get an opportunity to go down to see her, in fact, I was invited to several showers and selected the one that worked best for my schedule. The shower theme was zebra and hot pink, a combination which the expectant mom loves. I only wish I had known that as I could have tried to make the cake match, but oh well. They had a beautiful 4-tier diaper cake as a centerpiece for the desert table that matched the theme perfectly, so she received at least one cake with this favorite combination of hers.

Since then, I want to say in the past couple of months she started her own business with a friend called Baby Kakes by BFF. They can be found on Facebook and are a College Station local business.