Sweet Butterfly Baby Mobile

I have been seeing some cute baby mobiles on pinterest lately and decided it was time to make one for the girls's room.  We chose to go with a butterfly mobile to match the colors and theme already in their bedroom.

Materials

Butterfly punch, die-cut or die-cut machine (I used the my Cricut to cut out a 2 inch butterfly from the Home Decor Cartridge)

Paper in desired colors- you will need enough paper to cut 72 images (I used colored 2 sided scrapbook cardstock and clear vellum for my butterflies)

A ring. You can use a metal wreath base or even a large embroidery hoop.  I actually used a broken kids basketball door hoop.

Color coordinating ribbon for tying around base

Fishing Line

Sturdy wire for cross hairs of chandelier

Glue Dots

Scissors

Tulle for hanging the chandelier from ceiling

Here is my make shift loop.  I couldn't find an embroidery hoop.  This was perfect and cost me $0.

I just wrapped it in ribbon to hide the bright orange.

Instructions

1. Take two pieces of wire and cross them in the center of your hoop. Wrap ends of wire around circle where they come in contact. This will create a cross in the hoop that will give you more area to hang butterflies from.

2. Tie ribbons in knots around your base hoop. You could also paint it if you are using an embroidery hoop. If using ribbon use as little or as much as you would like.  I didn't go very full and you can see the underlying ribbon underneath.

3. Begin cutting or punching butterflies from paper. You will need a total of 36 completed butterflies for your chandelier if you hang as many as I did. I put a colored cardstock and a clear vellum piece together for each butterfly, so I cut 36 of each.

4. Cut 13 pieces of fishing line to about 20”-24". Each piece of fishing line will have 3 or 4 butterflies attached to it.

5. You can begin attaching butterflies to fishing line with glue dots. Place glue dots in the center (body) of each butterfly. Run the fishing line up the body and then attach the front piece of the butterfly over the top. This will create a sandwich for the fishing line. Place butterflies about 3-4 inches apart on the line. Leave plenty of extra line at the top of the butterflies so that you will be able to tie it on to the ring at the right height.  However, I put my fishing line on first and then sandwhiched the butterflies onto the line. It helped me see the colors as I went. 

6. When you have attached all of your butterflies to the line, begin tying them on to your base. I placed 2 longer strings on opposing cross lines of the wire in the middle of the loop.  Then middle lengthed fishing line at each of the four cross points on the hoop itself.  Last I put 4 shorter pieces of fishing line in between each of the four points of the loop.  The center 2 lines had 4 butterflies as did the four cross points on the loop.  The shorter 4 pieces had 3 butterflies.  You can play around with what looks good on yours.  If you are using a larger loop you will want more lines of butterflies.  You could put as many as 17 lines.  12 on outer loop, 4 on the center cross wires, and 1 in the middle.

7. Use tulle tied to each cross point to hang the chandelier from the ceiling or other area. You could also use ribbon.

Play around with different shapes.  Animals, flowers, dots, ect would also be really cute. 

 

And here is the final product above the crib. 

I got the original idea from:

Heartland Paper

She gives a little different instructions as hers was slightly larger and had more butterflies.