Merry Mobile

Never fear, if it ever seems that I do not have enough to do, I will find something else to put on my plate! This week I was already pretty busy, but our Sunday School class at church decided to have a last minute baby shower for one of our members. Well, after our success with the tiny baby shower in November, Sarah and I decided that (even with the extremely short notice) we could tackle this one.


I knew I wanted to make a banner, because I really loved the look of the other one. I also decided that it would be fun to do a "farm animal" theme- all the baby animals, and also the shower is for a boy. I really don't like traditional showers themes or colors (pale pink or baby blue). My initial thought was to go with a primary scheme again, but Sarah and I talked about it and we decided that going with red, black and white would make it feel a little more modern and tied together.


Other than the banner and the colors though, I wanted to have something that would be a focal point. For the tiny shower we used little pom-poms, but I didn't want a copy cat party. I was searching high and low on the 'net when I saw the perfect thing: a mobile! I can't remember where I saw it, and it was pretty simple, just circles hanging from a hoop. I thought, "I can do that". And I did!


First I went online and googled "farm animal coloring pages". I couldn't find animals that were more similar in size, I decided that it kind of added to the whimsy, right? As you can see, I cut the animals to make the silhouettes more simple. Also, I cut the chicken's beak out and moved it to the side, so you could really tell what it was. I did some trimming to the pig's ear, too.


I love the black, white and red! Supposedly those are very good colors for babies, because of the stark contrast. Since he has already arrived I thought this might be fun for him to look at after the shower is over. I used my print-outs to make templates out of cardstock. I initially thought it would be easier to print them straight onto the cardstock, but since I modified them it was easier with the paper (and a tiny bit cheaper!). I decided on doing 6 animals, two each of the cow, the pig and the chicken. I used 6 different scrapbook papers: three black and three red. I purchased all but one in the 6/$1 bin at Hobby Lobby. I also bought the embroidery hoop there that I used to hang them on. I forgot to take photos but I just used the inner ring of the set (the solid one) and painted it white. I used my 40% off coupon on that, so it was about $2. Total I spent $4 ($1 for paper, $2 for the hoop and $1 for the ribbon). Super thrifty, right?

I used my cardstock templates to trace the animals on folded scrapbook paper. I used it "wrong side" because it was easier to see the outlines, and I doubled the paper so I could cut out both sides at the same time and the animals would match up perfectly.


Then I glued ribbon to one piece of cardstock and covered the wrong side with rubber cement. Then I sandwiched the ribbon in between the two pieces of paper.

I decided that I wanted something to contrast with the animals so I cut out three different sizes of circles. I made 6 each of the 3 different sizes and I ended up using 17 of them! Like my lovely circle stencils? Make do or do without! They worked really well. Then I randomly glued the circles onto ribbon in sets of two or three. I ended up with seven strands of circles, and six strands of animals. I took three pieces of ribbon and glued them equidistant apart on the hoop to form a hanger.




My ingenious husband had the idea of hanging the mobile from a hanger on the fan so I could tie the strands on to see how they fit. When I was happy with the arrangement I got out my trusty glue gun (Joel set up an extension cord so it reached to the middle of the living room!) and glued them on. I also covered the outside of the hoop with black ribbon so it looked more polished. When I was setting up the strands I realized that using my 7th strand of circles put two circle strands side by side. That looked funny. Joel suggested hanging it from the center and I loved it! I also embellished some of the circles by gluing buttons to them.



The finished product! It actually is cuter in person. It is so cheerful and it really looks modern. I am thinking about making one for the kids' room. It is just paper but it really gives a great three dimensional aspect to things. I even like it hanging in my living room! Just kidding...




This is a closer picture of the top, you can see how I covered it with the black ribbon. Also, you can see a couple of the buttons on the circles.
You can see all the animal shapes here.

This is a close-up of one of my favorite cows. I would say that this took me about 4 hours total, but it was really worth the effort. Besides, it was so inexpensive to purchase the supplies I didn't mind spending a lot of time on it. I really hope the guests of honor enjoy it. I will post pictures of the shower after Sunday!