Pinwheel Crib Mobile

When my husband and I were planning out our son's nursery, we wanted to include a mobile for his crib. Every baby needs a mobile, right? As we started searching for one we liked, however, we noticed a few things. First, mobiles can be crazy expensive! Second, there are a lot of really cheesy mobiles on the market. And third, most of the mobiles are designed to be looked at from the side. If you looked at them from the baby's perspective you wouldn't see much! Discouraged, we never purchased one and our son's crib went sans mobile. This wasn't really a problem at first as he mostly slept in his bassinet. Now that he is older and does most of his sleeping in his crib, it really bothered me that he didn't have anything fun to look at. So I did what any crafty mama would do and made him one!

It was important to me that whatever design I chose would be interesting to look at from underneath. The whole point is for the baby to see it after all! After scouring Pinterest and Etsy for ideas I settled on making him a pinwheel mobile. Pinwheels are cute, face downward, and are easy to make. I could also choose pattern papers that complemented his nursery decor.

I went to Michael's and picked out some of their open stock pattern paper in reds and blues. Michael's often runs a sale on their 12x12 paper so I waited for one and got each sheet for 20 cents.

To make the pinwheels I followed a tutorial by Ashley Cannon Newell for one of Papertrey Ink's "Make it Monday" series. She was making pinwheels to put on cards, but I adapted the idea for the mobile and made them larger. I cut my paper into 3 1/2" squares, so that the finished pinwheels measure 4 1/2" across. Aren't they adorable?!

For most of the pinwheels, I adhered two sheets of pattern paper together. I also stitched them together with embroidery thread to make sure they were extra strong and wouldn't come apart. Mixing and matching the different patterns was a lot of fun!

The pinwheels hang from these dowels. I purchased two 3/8" dowels from Michael's and cut them in half. I made nine pinwheels; one hangs from each arm of the mobile and one hangs down the center.

Lashing the four pieces together was a bit tricky. I originally tried wrapping just baker's twine around them, but I couldn't get them stable enough. My brilliant Dad then suggested tacking them with hot glue in addition to wrapping with twine. It worked! I did go back and tuck in the loose ends of twine that are in this picture.

The pinwheels are suspended from the dowels by fishing line. The knot is on the front (as is the knot from the embroidery thread that helps hold them together) so I hot glued a button to the center of each pinwheel to cover it up. I had planned on doing that anyway, to add a contrasting spot of color, but it had the added benefit of hiding the unsightly knots.

I was giddy with excitement when I finished! I think it turned out adorable and I love that it matches our son's nursery. I also love that he has something interesting to look at as he falls asleep and when he wakes up (a bare white ceiling just isn't that exciting!) And the whole project only cost around $2 to make! 

Thanks for stopping by!