I perused Pinterest and Etsy for some nursery mobile ideas. I found this and fell in love. Absolutely gorgeous items from that seller, but not in my budget.
So I decided to make a cheap spinoff.
Materials:
- Felted wool (The local big box craft store sold packets of two colors for $2 each. I got five packages, one of each color combo available)
- 48″ dowel
- Cotton yarn
- Fishing line
- Two screw-in hooks (for hanging on the ceiling)
- Warm, soapy water
- Patience
For forming the wool balls, I used Martha’s recipe. Sorry, I didn’t take photos! I had soapy, wet hands and raisin fingers by the end of it.
When the balls were shaped, I put them on a napkin in a baking tray to dry. They seemed susceptible to shape changes while wet, so I rolled them around every once in a while to make sure they didn’t develop any flat sides (just like with a baby to prevent a flat head! See? I’m going to be a great parent.)
Fully dry and retaining their shape a couple of days later, I had the joy of stringing them on cotton yarn (something we had laying around the house). Stringing was a pain. I used a large nail with the string taped to it, and gently pushed it through the ball.
Now, I said I got five packages with two colors each. So 10 colors, which made 20 balls. Two of those balls were white, which looked like cotton balls. So I skipped those. With the 18 balls, I threaded three on six strings.
On to the dowel. I cut it into three even pieces and sanded the edges. I aligned them and made three marks: one in the middle and two on each end. USE A SMALL BIT and work your way up. Dowel wood is cheap and it will split.
The center hole was a pilot hole for a screw. I attached the three dowels by slowly drilling in a 2″ screw. I wiggled the dowels around and my base was ready.
On two dowels, I drilled two very small holes for stringing the fishing line through. (These weren’t marked and evenness didn’t matter since hanging would level it.)
Two fishing line loops on the ceiling hooks (painted to match the ceiling) felt nice and secure. It’s not exactly the heaviest thing in the world, so I don’t think it’ll spontaneously crash down. With the decorated yarn threaded and hung, I trimmed the lengths as necessary.
A few snips and some fishing line adjustments later…
This was my first time working with felt, so there are some flaws. For example, one ball has a butt crack. Another absorbed some orange while it was still wet. Oops.
Hopefully it’s mesmerizing enough to capture Baby B’s attention.
Total cost: less than $10. The wool (normally $2) was on sale. The dowel was cheap and I used one of those ubiquitous 50% off coupons. I already owned everything else. Hopefully, this will be visually appealing to Baby B and he’ll enjoy starting at it for hours on end!
And, in the name of artistic talent, I insist you look at the Etsy page for the seller that inspired this. HELLO FELTED BABY OTTER, I LOVE YOU.
