Baby

DIY Baby Mobile

DIY baby mobile

Out of everything I made for Lily’s nursery, my favorite is the mobile. I used an old mobile and replaced the characters with my own.

fox nursery mobile

Materials:

  • Mobile
  • 5 objects to hang (I used a set of Calico Critters)
  • Thread (white, clear, or whichever color you like)
  • 1 or 2 artificial flowers & floral tape (optional)
  • Tacky glue
  • Hot glue gun/sticks
  • Printer/paper (or place you can print such as a library)
  • Scissors
  • 4 pearl beads (optional)
  • Dye, acrylic paint/paintbrush, yarn (for customizing; optional)


Calico Critters/sylvanian Families Slydale Fox Family Of 5 | eBay

Calico Critters Fox Family

I wanted foxes to go with my theme, and I thought Calico Critters would be darn cute. I couldn’t find foxes anywhere new so I ended up finding them used on eBay for about $30. This was a splurge item for me because I just had to have them! That’s a bit spendy for used in my opinion, but since I was going to make changes, I didn’t need them new in the box anyway. It came as a family of 5 which was perfect for the 5 tie-points of the mobile. The newer families come in a set of 4, so you can have 2 large, 2 medium, and use something else for the middle (such as a flower).

I wanted them to be orange so I bought a box of RIT and dyed them. I used very hot (almost boiling) water, and it worked really well.

Calico Critters Fox Family Dyed Orange

Next I painted them: White for the inner ears, lower face & bellies; black for the ear backs, noses, arms and legs. The tails didn’t dye very well so I took them out and made tails out of white and orange yarn that I brushed out. Then I made some wings in 3 sizes, printed & cut them out, glued them back-to-back with tacky glue which I spread thinly with my finger to avoid wrinkling. To make them look extra nice, I colored with a black sharpie around the wing edges so they wouldn’t be white. The FREE wings printable is right here for you! To attach the wings, I folded them down the middle and glued to their backs with hot glue.

Calico Critters Fox Painted

I hung them 3-4 inches down with white thread. The center of the mobile is a loop, so I tied the thread directly on it (baby fox), but for the other 4, I used a pearl bead for each (which looks so much nicer than knots), then tied the thread around their necks (sounds a little morbid but it’s not). Most mobiles I’ve seen have the characters upright, but I wanted Lily to enjoy their faces (babies LOVE faces), so they are looking down at her. She certainly adores it…check out that delighted girl! That was my biggest reward for this project.

Lily-with-mobile

To make the stand look like a flower, I wrapped it with floral tape (and inserted a couple leaves) and hot-glued a flower bloom at the top (cut in one place between petals to center). If you get a group of artificial flowers, you can use one for the stand and one for the center hanging object if you need to. I think the proportion of the flower to the critters is so cute because it really does make them look like little fairies, telling a story for your baby’s imagination.

VERY IMPORTANT!! Please remember safety comes first, so be sure that the baby can’t reach the mobile, and that there are no small parts to choke on.

What kind of mobile will you make? Let me know in a comment!

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