personalized baby blanket: A gift that takes the cake

BY SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS
The Wichita Eagle

This low-cost homemade gift gets raves at baby showers -- and proves really useful later

Mylene Serpan of Wichita says she gives the same gift at every baby shower -- an elaborately decorated "cake" made from cloth diapers.

"Most people don't think new moms will use cloth diapers, but they still make the best burp rags," Serpan said.

"I've been giving these cakes for years and have always had positive feedback from all the new moms."

Serpan makes the cake by tightly winding a dozen cloth diapers around a lightweight, rolled-up personalized baby blanket, covering the whole thing with a layer of tulle, and then attaching lace, ribbon and decorations to make it look like a real cake.

Sometimes she personalizes it with the baby's name or items that go with the new mom's nursery theme.

Another popular shower gift is a two- or three-tiered cake made from a package of disposable diapers and other baby products. (You may remember a frou-frou, over-the-top version the girls of HBO's "Sex and the City" carried to their friend Miranda's baby shower in uptown Manhattan.)

For photos and step-by-step instructions for making a disposable-diaper cake -- it requires about 60 diapers, a bottle of baby lotion and other items -- go to www.plan-the-perfect-baby-shower.com and click on "Diaper Cakes."

Serpan said her cakes never fail to prompt oohs and ahhs from shower guests. She did upset a hostess once, though, who looked shocked and offended when Serpan walked in with the cake.

"I had to explain that it wasn't real -- it was the gift," she said. "She apologized, and we had a good laugh."


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Reach Suzanne Perez Tobias at 316-268-6567 or stobias@wichitaeagle.com.