Steelers Diaper Cake

This weekend was my friend's baby shower. I got to be part of the shower-planning committee for her, and part of my contribution was a diaper cake. I did some Pinterest research in diaper cake-making, but there's really not much out there for tutorials (that I found). I saw several different designs, which was enough for me to figure it out on my own. 

Basically, you start with a bunch of diapers. I bought a 192-pack of size 1's, but I only used about 90 diapers. I rolled each diaper into a little cylinder and bundled them with a rubber band: 

Top Tier

The top tier was the easiest, because you can hold them all and bind it at once. The second two tiers, I used larger rubber bands and added rolled-up diapers into the middle of the bundle until it grew and grew. I had to re-roll some of them and re-organize them to make it a snug fit, but it wasn't as tedious as I thought it would be. 

Top Tier: 7 Diapers

Middle Tier: 26 Diapers 

Bottom Tier: 56 Diapers

It was a sports-themed shower, and this baby's dad is a huge Steelers and Tarheels fan, so I knew I wanted to incorporate one or both of those teams. I thought I would cover each tier with black or Tarheel blue, and then put an emblem on the front of each tier, BUT when I got to the fabric store, they had Steeler fabric! I dropped the Tarheels idea and went full-on Steelers. 

I bought 1/2 yard of fabric and cut it in half longways, then cut the strips into three pieces: 

Top Tier: 15''

Middle Tier: 30''

Bottom Tier: 45''

Then I covered each tier. I used silver-topped straight pins (like the ones you get with mens' collared shirts) to pin the circumference edge. The pins were barely visible on the outside of the cake. 

Then I pinned the top of the fabric into the diapers, folding it over ever couple inches. The top of the tier needs to be covered pretty well. I left a little space of exposed diapers where the next tier would cover it. 

The bottom can just barely cover the diapers: 

Then I made a little cake-topper football out of felt, stuffed it and pinned it on top. It was fun to make and everybody loved it at the shower. Hope this helps if you want to make one of these too!