Make Your Own Crib Mobile

A while back, when we were deciding what to do with the nursery and how to decorate it, I decided that the mobile was one of the things that I wanted to be slightly different than the normal things you can buy at Babies R Us. Not to mention the fact I really wasn't liking anything that was available. So, I searched and searched and found a mobile on Etsy that I loved ... but did NOT want to spend $35 on when it looked incredibly easy to recreate on my own.

So, I set out for recreating it. This project was so easy and looks so good in our nursery! Not to mention the fact that it is totally customizable to your theme & colors. All in all, this project cost about $6.00. SIX DOLLARS! You really can't beat that. Just to let you know, I completely fumbled my way through it with nothing but looking at a photo to guide me. So if you know of a better way to do this, please feel free to do so! However, I promise you ... this is extremely easy!

First things first. Because of the theme of our nursery, I used six different colors for the six different felt balls. You'll be making three small ones and three large ones. I have seen mobiles like this with only two colors, such as white and teal, or black and pink. Whatever your fancy is and whatever you are going with. (Excuse my picture quality in the photos below. It was rainy and dark when I was working on these over the weekend, which means I had zero natural light to shoot with!! They aren't the greatest.]

You are first going to want to cut out even circles for all your felt puff balls. Or whatever you want to call them. Really, I don't have an official name and I feel weird saying "balls" over and over again in this post. Yup. I'm 31 years old. Either way, that's what they are!

But I digress. You are going to want the same number for all your small ones and all your large ones. For this mobile, I used three large felt balls [hee hee! Ok, I'll stop now.] and three small ones. For what is shown, I used eight total felt circles for each ball, both large and small. Use whatever you have around the house to outline your pattern.

See? It doesn't have to be fancy. Technical expertise at work!! I used a pot lid for my large circles [getting two large circles on each felt sheet, four sheets in total for each color] and a random dish that seemed like a good size for the smaller ones [getting four small circles on each felt sheet, two in total for each color].

Please know that I used eight circles for each felt ball. If you want to make them a little more dense, feel free to use more. Just make sure you have an even number [I'll explain why below].

Once you have everything cut out and separated, you will then start putting them together. Take one felt circle and fold it in half. Then fold it in half again, until you get the image below. On the second fold, you'll create a point down at the bottom. At this point I took the hot glue gun and upon the second fold, put a quick dab of hot glue in there to hold it together and to help it keep this shape. Sorry for not taking a photo of that, but it will make sense when you do it. Essentially, where my fingers are holding the felt, I'm holding the glue in place so it can dry.

You're going to want to do this for ALL your felt circles, large and small. I did one felt ball at a time, from start to finish, but do whatever works best for you. Once you have them all glued as shown above, then you are going to start assembling. Because I used eight circles total, I used four felt circles per half [as shown below].

There really is no rhyme or reason to putting these together. Do whatever you think looks best, but essentially, make sure that all glued points come together. This right here is the underside, but the top half looks like half a puffy circle. You'll glue everything together in the middle.

Now, since I used four felt circles for the top half of the ball, I used four felt circles for the bottom half ... eight in total. If you use five felt circles for one half, use five for the bottom half ... ten in total. You get the idea. Make sure you use an even amount otherwise your felt ball will look a little top heavy and won't be uniform in shape or size.

Once you have both halves glued together in the centers, throw some hot glue right smack in the middle and push the two halves together.

Once you are completed, you will have a ball that looks like this:

And when you are done with ALL of them, they will look like this:

Once you have all the felt balls together, it's time to assemble. I used a heavy cotton thread that I bought at the craft store, and the hoop is nothing more than the inside portion of a cross stitch hoop, that you can buy for dirt cheap at any crafting store as well. This particular one is six inches wide.

Make sure you cut plenty of thread before assembling. My mobile hangs about three and a half feet from ceiling to the lowest ball on the mobile, but it's completely up to you how far down you want it to come. So make sure you cut plenty of extra thread to leave room for error, room for adjustment, etc. But essentially, you want two felt balls per strand, one small one and one large one. Play with the way the hang and the distance between the two. I liked mine a little off center and not all even to fill out out a little more, but do what you think looks best.

To attach to the ceiling, I used a simple ceiling hook that screwed into the ceiling in the nursery. I bought it for $.50 at Home Depot.

All in all, this project took me about an hour and a half to complete. The mobile looks gorgeous in our nursery and is definitely unique. Not to mention inexpensive and easy! If you have any questions, let me know in the comments. I'm sure I could have explained a little easier, but since this is my first tutorial, I'm sure I forgot something! ENJOY!