Friday 6 April 2012

Plush Nursery Mobile

Hope everyone is having a great Easter Long Weekend!  Just thought I would write another post about DIY Home Decor!

For today I am blogging about a mobile I made for my son's nursery.  It was made out of a plush ring stacker toy that I found to match an Elephant pillow that I received as a gift before he was born.  You may be wondering why I'm blogging about this 2 and a half  years later?  This is because I just took apart the mobile so my daughter could play with, but mainly because it was hanging in the kids bathroom and my son decided to start taking it apart for me!

Finished Mobile
What I Used:

- plush ring stacker toy with 5 rings (I found mine at Chapters)
- spool of 1 inch thick ribbon
- spool of 1/4 inch ribbon
- fabric scissors













So as I said I found the ring stacker toy at chapters and used this one specifically because it matched the elephant pillow that was my inspiration for the decor of the room.  I also love this toy because of all the different fabrics and textures, each ring also has a unique rattle inside which added sound to the mobile too.


Plush Ring Stacker 
Separated Rings

Before I got started with the assembly of the mobile, I first cut all the required ribbon pieces with fabric scissors in order to get a clean cut.  For the thick ribbon I used a chocolate brown satin with blue stitching.  With this, I cut an extra long piece for the top, I figured out the length so that the middle could attached to the ceiling and the ends would attach to two sides of the largest plush ring, which would make the mobile the perfect height for the crib.  Than I cut four pieces that gradually got smaller by about 2 inches.  And finally I cut eight equal pieces out of the thin ribbon, for this i used a lime green organza with a satin border. 
All these measurement took a bit of trial and error to get right.  But the final measurements I used worked out perfectly so here they are:

In the Thick Ribbon cut;
- one piece at 5 feet (48 inches) for the top
- one piece at 20 inches
- one piece at 18 inches
- one piece at 16 inches
- one piece at 14 inches

(these pieces will be tied in knots attaching to the thin ribbon)

In the Thin Ribbon cut;
- eight pieces at 12 inches each

 (these pieces will be tied around each ring allowing enough extra to finish off with a bow)

Thin Ribbon Lengths
Thick Ribbon Lengths



With the ribbon cut all that was left to do was assemble everything together.  I used the large ring as the top piece and I dangled the four smaller ones from there.  The thick (brown) ribbon made the support pieces of the mobile and the thin (green) ribbon was what attached the supporting pieces to the rings.  Here is how you can assemble the pieces together for your own mobile:

1. Tie one piece of green ribbon through the whole and around one side of each of the four smaller rings making it so that the bow is at the front of one flat side. 

2. With the large ring tie four pieces of the green ribbon through the middle and around each side (so that there are four bows around the outside round part at north, south, east and west of the ring).

3. Fold the extra long piece of brown ribbon in half and tie each end with a tight knot to one green ribbon piece that is tied around the largest ring and then another piece across from the first, these knots should sit at the top flat section of the ring. 

4. Tie the remaining pieces of thick ribbon to each of the four green ribbon pieces attached to the same ring so that the knots are positioned at the bottom flat section of the ring.

5. Randomly tie the lose ends of the brown ribbon to each of the green ribbon pieces attached to the remaining four rings.  These knots should be positioned on one side of the round section of each ring.


Finished Mobile
Mobile Hung Above Crib



The end result should be, and was in my case, a mobile with a large ring hung horizontally at the top and four smaller rings randomly dangling vertically at varying lengths.  The different rattle sounds that were inside the rings made a cute sound when the mobile would swing and my son as a baby loved watching the rings gently sway. 

This mobile was perfect for this nursery and helped to tie together the surrounding decor, especially the matching elephant pillow.  On the opposite wall to the crib was a elephant silhouette mural.  To see pictures of the rest of the room check out my facebook page and view the Nursery Project album.

Hope you enjoyed this fun little project!


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