I recently was invited to a baby shower that was viking-themed. I wanted to come up with something clever and uncommon and had never made a diaper cake before. So here is a viking ship diaper cake.

Step 1: Supplies

Gather supplies-----

Hot Glue and Low Temp hot glue gun

Diapers

Scissors

Thin Ribbon in mulitple colors

Cardboard

6-8 Baby One-zies

Bottle Brush

Dragon or Monster baby hat or sock

Wooden dowel Rods
1 - 3' long
and 1 - thinner 3 ' long

Red and White striped scrapbook paper

Baby animal bath toys or small stuffed animals

Duct tape

Glue stick for paper

Safety pins

6 - 8 Baby spoons

Hole puncher

Step 2: Cardboard Stucture

Cut out your cardboard stucture. A botton and sides and middle supports.

You can make as big or as small as you want.

My boat ended up being about 24" Long when finished.

Don't be afraid to really lay on the hot glue.

Cut three slits on each side of the boat for the oars to slip into.

Step 3: Roll Diapers

Tightly roll the diapers longways and secure with a ribbon about an inch and half from the top and bottom. Tie each ribbon with a bow.

Step 4: Getting the Diapers on the Boat

This is the hard part.. I mean fun part.

Take a length of duct tape as long as one side of your boat plus 3 or so inches and turn in each end of the strip of tape and tape to the cardboard boat so that the sticky side is facing out. You may have to roll up a few pieces of duct tape to stick between the non sticky side and the cardboard to get a good hold.

Then one by one, carefully stick on your rolled diapers. When you get one side done, take a super long length of ribbon and "sew" it between each of the diappers ties along the top and the bottom.

Repeat the duct tape part on the other side and continue to sew the ribbon through the ties. Pull the long ribbon tight on top and bottom and secure with a knot and a bow.

Step 5: Making the Sail

The sail is just two pieces of stripped scrapbook paper glued back to back with the glue stick. Make sure you design it so that the stripes are vertical. Hole punch a hole in each corner of the sail.

Take your thicker of the two dowel rods and cut your mast.( About 26"?) Hot glue that into your middle cardboard support. Then, hot glue and tie the smaller dowel rods horizontally on the mas, they should be the same width as the paper sail. Make it a little shorter than your sail.

Glue the top and bottom edges of your sail on the horizontal dowel rods.

Hopefully your sail looks like there is wind blowing in it.

If you are lucky enough to find a stripped bib that would work even better for the sail.

Step 6: Filling the Boat

Before you fill the boat go ahead and slide in the spoons to make the oars.

Fill the boat with diapers laid flat. Stack so that they lay symetrically. I also hot glued a few lengths of ribbon horizontally across the diapers to help hold them in place.

Here, if you have extra onezies you can lay them in there too.

Step 7: Making the Shields

I made 3 shields for each side of the boat.

Take a baby onezie and fold in half. Starting with the sleves roll to made a long snake like roll. Then, roll that up like a snail. Pin the back of the shield with safety pins to hold it in place (it may take a lot). When you have three shields rolled up you can cross tie each them to a length of dowel rod. Or you can lay them in the boat too.

Step 8: Making the Head and Tail

Stick a bottle brush handle into the threadwork of the front of the ship. Then slip on a baby hat or sock that looks like a moster or nordic dragon or whatever you can find.

The tail (not on my ship :P) can be a baby comb also worked into the back ribbons.

Step 9: Crew Members

Add your stuffed animals or bath animals as your ship's crew. You can also place in extra items you have. Try to lay them in the ship symetrically.

And now you have a lovely gift to present.

I am sure a similar ship could be made for a piarate-themed baby shower. :)