Baby Mobile and Art Project

Baby Mobile Project

I first saw this idea here. There weren't the best instructions for this but I loved the look and thought it couldn't be to hard.  So I gathered the materials I would need (or thought I would need) and set out to re-create this mobile. 

First I needed to figure out just how many circles I wanted to hang down from the hoop and then  I needed to figure out how many I needed to cut out.  Keep in mind you need two circles of the heat n bond for each circle you want hanging.  This took a little math which Steve was more than happy to provide.  I don't even remember how many I chose.  Second I had to decide on what size circles I wanted.  I wanted two different sizes which luckily this cup narrows at the bottom so I only needed this cup.  I traced the cup on the heat n bond paper side up. 

Once all the circles were cut out, see below, I gathered the material to figure out how many circles of which pattern I wanted.  This also took some math that Steve also assisted me with.  (Picking up on a theme here?  Math wasn't my strongest subject in school).  

Place the heat n bond rough side down on the wrong side of the material and iron. The picture below shows a swatch of my material.  Some of my material was swatches and others were larger pieces.  On the larger pieces I ironed a bunch of the circles all at once so I had a large strip to work with. 

Once ironed cut out the shape.  The heat n bond will help the material from fraying.

Here is a picture of some of my finished circles.  This part can be time consuming.  Luckily for me I can't do much other than sit so I set up a little work station in front of my recliner and went to town.

Now that you have all your circles cut out you will need to figure what order you want the patterns in on the twine.  Place once circle wrong side up. Place twine (or whatever you are using to string the circles) in the middle of the circle.  Place another circle (same pattern) on top of circle and twine (right side up) and iron.

Continue ironing the circles along the twine until you reach the number you desire.

Here is a picture of my strings.

Take the strings and wrap around the embroidery hoop and tie it off.  (you will come back and hot glue on the tie off to keep it from untying)

Now I forgot to get a picture of the beads due to being the hospital and Steve actually did this part for me.  But you will take twine (or your string) and tie off one end to the hoop.  Then string the beads and tie off the other end to a ring.  You will need 3-4 strings of beads and for them to be gathered up to the ring.  tip:  make sure you have the same length of string and approx. the same number of beads per string.  Otherwise your hoop will not hang straight.

Art Project

I took the some of the same material I used for the mobile above and used it to make an art project.  I had 6 18x18 styrofoam squares from some boxes that were used to shipping and I reused them for this project.  You can use a canvas or wood if you have it.  I just used what I had on hand so I didn't have to spend any extra money.

I measured out the material and used a spray adhesive and sprayed the foam and then wrapped the foam with the material.  I then used my glue gun on the corners and that didn't work too well on the foam.  So I grabbed some generic plain straight pins and stuck them through the material and foam.  Worked like a charm actually.

I also used some left over circles (see told you math wasn't my strong subject) and ironed them onto the plain color square to form the baby's initials. 

Here are the finished projects together hung in the nursery.  I think they turned out pretty good.