What will it Bee??

My great friend Valerie is having a baby.  Valerie is married to a man she loves and together they have a little girl who is almost two and baby number two on the way.  She has chosen to not find out what the gender of the baby is and so everything is gender neutral.  I wanted to give Valerie a shower and I scouted Pinterest (see my shower board) for ideas.  I loved the 'banner' idea
http://thetoastedcoconut.blogspot.com/2011/05/baby-shower-invites.html
and I tried an invitation or two like this and I figured I could make a matching banner in gender neutral colors with paper or with fabric.  But somehow...it just wasn't quite what I wanted.  So I kept looking.  Then I found this great blog where she had done a 'What will it bee?" shower and I knew that's what I loved!
http://jackandmandy.blogspot.com/2009/03/its-baby-shower-day.html
But I didn't really like the invitations so I created my own -

That picture is coming....I need to take a photo of one of them!

I loved the bee diaper cake and knew I wanted to try making a diaper cake on my own.  I had never done one and so I asked my friend Mary who has made several for a few tips at bookclub.  She gave me some great pointers.  Chris another friend gave me some huge rubber bands and without those you couldn't make this cake.  Mary said to use size 2 or 3 diapers because the newborn diapers are just too small.  So I bought a box of Huggies size 2.  I took one diaper and rolled it up and placed a small rubber band around it.  I think took a stack of diapers and layed them out on the table as if I was fanning out a deck of cards.  I made it so I could see just 1/2" - 1" of the end of the diaper and then the next diaper was on top of it.  I had the folded end sticking out.  After I stacked several (12 for the top layer not counting the center diaper) I put them around the middle diaper and rubber banded them on.  I then adjusted them so they were fairly evenly spaced.  After the cake was complete, I ended up replacing the single rolled up diaper with a bottle of baby wash.

On the second tier of the cake I rolled six diapers up (each one individually) and rubber banded them.  I then made a stack of 16 I think and did the same thing.  For this layer I enlisted a member of my family.  Again, I rubber banded and then adjusted them. 

For the bottom layer I did 8 and 25 diapers.  I ended up using about 3/4 of the package of diapers.  I gave the rest to mom in the box.  I think bought two ribbons, one a 2" wide and another 1" wide.  Again I was going with the yellow and black theme.  I used a hot glue gun to make sure they stayed together and then glued the end over slightly.  I used a straight pin to pin the ribbon to itself in the back of the cake.  I found a four package of bees at Hobby Lobby and attached them to black pipe cleaners that I had in my craft box.  I curled the black pipe cleaners around a pencil and then placed them around the cake.  I also found a wooden 'T' (baby's last name starts with a T) at Hobby Lobby and painted it black.  I didn't take a good picture of it.  But sweet Valerie recreated it when she arrived home.

Food coming in the next section.....