My baby sister is expecting a little girl at the end of May, and I recently created this mobile for her nursery.
I used the Wendy the Bird pattern from Lollichops, but scaled it down almost half-size. The fabrics come from the leftover fabric collections of my Grandma, Mom and me. My favorite fabric is the one to the left of the Pink Bird. It came from my Grandma’s scraps, and has a lovely vintage quality to it. My mom seems to remember every piece of fabric she has sewed with, and was able to tell my sister what each of her fabrics were made into originally. Since she has 4 daughters, they were mostly dresses! It was nostalgic and sweet to be reminded of the dresses we once wore and loved.
Before I added the flowers. The birds are hung with cream cotton crochet yarn.
The branch came from my woodsy yard, and I got the idea for the flowers from my Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Crafts book. The stamens were a bit difficult to find, so I ended up ordering them online. To make the flower petals, I used cotton scrap fabric. The type of fabric does matter, it needs to be a thin cotton, and you need to make sure you give it a good soaking in Stiffy liquid stiffener or you won’t be able to punch it. I let mine dry overnight, and then used a hydrangea flower punch to punch out the flowers. It is really fun when you get it all right and the cute fabric flowers fall onto your desk from your quick working punch!
To add the stamen, I punched a small hole in the center of each flower with a micro punch and then got imaginative with my stamen combinations. They need a dab of rubber cement or other strong non-toxic glue to keep them in place. To affix them to the branch, I used my hot glue gun. I did trim down the stamen so they wouldn’t be visible.
The flowers are affixed with hot glue on top of and below the branch.
The hooks and rings I used to hang the Mobile were created from green floral wire. If you are not comfortable with creating your own loops and hooks, you can use small eye screws. The string is cotton crochet yarn in cream.
Overall, it seems like a lot of work, but most of the hard work is making the first piece of anything. Once you get the hang of each component, the creating goes quickly!
Baby's view of the mobile.
Crazily enough, I have learned that its really hard to blog and craft with an newborn!
