Monday, February 7, 2011

Bird Mobile tutortial

So my friend is having a baby and I decided to make a baby mobile I knew she would like.
I used the bird pattern and mobile idea from the lovely Spool website. I guess I shouldn't call this a tutorial since it won't have a lot of instructions. Cause really this project was just a huge balancing act, but there are lots of pictures of me doing it.
First I attached the branches together with crochet thread (I use that stuff for everything) and a staple gun. I first tried eye screws like the one on the spool website, but they wouldn't go into the branches. Then I found something to hang it on (my lamp) and got to work.

These are all the supplies I used (besides the staple gun and branches) I made the fabic birds earlier in the week whenever I had down time. The pattern they give is pretty easy to do.

First I glued a bird on with hot glue.

Then I stitched it onto the branch.

Once it was stitched on I could lift the with my finger enough to "un-glue" it and slide the bird around if I needed to move it. Once I got it in the place I wanted it (at the end) I glued the bottom back to the branch.

Then is was just placing the birds in the right place to balance it so they hung straight.
I had to hand the vertical branch on the end so that the lowest branch wouldn't flip upside down. i did use the eye screw for that one, but I couldn't put a bird on it cause that would have been too heavy so I made some small fabric flowers to add a little something more.

I cut out some circles out of scrap fabric.

Then got some Elmer's glue (just the amount pictured) and mixed it with water.

Then dipped them in it so that they would dry stiff and not unravel. I could have used more water cause they turned out little more stiff than I would have wanted. Once I dipped them all I put them on a plate and put them in the microwave for a minute to dry them faster (I am inpatient).

Then I would take each circle and fold it in half...

Then fold it in half again...

Then put three of those together and stitched them all together. Then I hot glued them to the branches. And...
I didn't get a picture of the finished project.lame.

I hope this helped someone. I think I am going to make another one for myself, cause it looks really awesome. Ooooohh, wouldn't fabric owls be cool? And Jenny I hope your baby likes it.

2 comments:

  1. This mobile is the seriously the most unique and cool I've ever seen. I can't wait to hang it up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ohhh... I want fabric owls! You'll have to help me make one some day. :)

    ReplyDelete

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