Call Me Mrs.Foster: DIY Paper Mobile for the nursery

I have eyed these mobiles on Etsy for a while now.. these are just a few. I looked at a ton of them. But, I just could NOT spend the money on it. It would come close to 70 bucks for one :/ But I really wanted one. So I started googling away and trying to see if there was a way to make my own. I needed some instruction on where to even start.

I found this blog and I liked her instructions the best. And her mobile looked like what I wanted. So I made a run to Hobby Lobby, cue the sound of angels because I love that place and grabbed (and by grabbed I mean I spent about 30 whole minutes alone staring at the damn scrapbook paper trying to pick the colors I wanted) my supplies. That ended up being a long HL run. But it always is right?

Here is my list:

4 colors of scrapbook paper 3 of each color 12 x 12
Yarn
Thread (or you could use fishing wire but I couldn't find it so I grabbed thread)
Sewing needle (I already had these on hand)
8" and 4" wooden embroidery hoops
Circle hole puncher 2"

I started with the yarn and hoops. You will just need the inside circle of the hoops and you can discard or whatever the outside piece with the metal hardware.

Discard the outer hoop with the hardware just use the inside hoop

This honestly took a long time to do. So if you dont think you will have the patience to twist this yarn around these hoops then just paint them. Although I personally recommend the yarn.

You are just gonna have to figure out your technique to tie and twist this around the hoops becaues I cant even begin to explain how I did it. It was simple but hard to explain.

Next I punched out my circles. This also took some elbow grease and nothing an episode of The Vampire Diaries cant get you through. I was able to get 25 circles per sheet. So I ended up with 300 circles.

and a mess

Next I threaded my circles together. I got lazy and didnt take pictures of each step but I have faith that you can figure it out.

I dont know how to exactly explain how I thread the circles so I would refer back to this blog for instuctions.

But instead of punching a hole in each circle before I threaded them I just took my needle and punched them as I was threading the string through the circle. Tie a knot after each circle (about an inch above each circle) to hold the next one in place and I spaced them about an inch apart give or take. Oh and also make sure you leave at least 8 inches of string at the very top so you can tie it around the hoop.

I cut some of them too short and it was such a pain to tie to the hoop. And I only double knotted them which was a mistake. They will come loose and fall off. So I had to restring a few strands to be able to have enough on the end to tie to the hoop. I would recommend tying them in at least 3 or 4 knots. And dont cut the excess string off TOO short. Leave a little bit of slack on there so it doesnt slide back through your knots and fall off. Which is what I did and had to redo them.

By the time I had finished (and this took about 5 days to finish because I could only work on a little at a time throughout the week after work each night) I was just ready to be done with it so I got lazy on the pictures :( Sorry. But that is why I also included the instructions from the blog I used. I knew I would leave some stuff out and I wanted to give credit where it was due.

But here is my mobile hung up in my nursery!!! I love it! And it was worth the hassle ;) and only cost me $20 instead of $70!