May 10, 2009

Baby can have a cake and wear it tooBy Maureen HoustonBND.com

When Christy Brocato realized she was in Mascoutah to stay, she made herself a cake.

A diaper cake decorated with rattles, bibs, stuffed animals and ribbon, and restarted a home-based business. It’s similar to one she had when she lived in Australia from 2003 to 2005.

There, she called it Happy Nappy Cakes. In Australia, a diaper is a nappy.

Here, it’s Bella Baby Bundles.

“Mom used to say, ‘It’s not the gift. It’s how you give it,'” said Christy, 44, picking up a pink-themed cake, complete with a blanket, a onesie, a cap, bottles and a bib. “You can give the same thing in a baby bag. It’s the presentation.”

Each cellophane-wrapped cake looked good enough to … delight a new mom.

They start at $18.95. Her three sizes, or layers, are Bella Itsy Bitzy, Bella Bloomer and Bella Bundler. The bundled diapers — some wrapped in receiving blankets — look like wedding cakes. She also makes baseball Cardinal-themed ones. Want a puppy theme or a cake as tall as you? Christy will customize.

“It’s kind of like a pizza,” said Christy. “They can upgrade.”

On a cool, cloudy day, she set out bright pink, blue and yellow diaper cakes on a dining room table in the family’s new home. Christy and husband Tony, a U.S. Air Force senior master sergeant, moved to Mascoutah two years ago with their children, Arielle, 18, and Christian, 14. Before that, they lived in Hawaii and Australia.

For a while, Christy harbored the thought the family might be sent back to a beach location. That didn’t happen. They stayed 157 days in a hotel before their Mascoutah house was finished.

“When the moving truck pulled up here, I realized it’s real,” said Christy. “I am really staying here. This is my new home. I may as well bloom where I’m planted. I feel like I am blooming today.”

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