DIY Pinwheel Mobile

Let's talk crib mobiles. Of course with Pinterest I found a million cute ideas, but of course being the crazy first time mom I decided to do a little research into mobiles. Mobiles are made to not only help stimulate your baby, but also sooth them. That completely contradicts itself, but it's true. While the fun colors and movement can stimulate your bay as they watch it, when they are sleepy the repetitive motion helps sooth them. Now how to choose what mobile I wanted....  I didn't like the ones in the stores...they were mostly bright colors stuffed animals, I was not a fan. I found tons on Pinterest that looked gorgeous from my eye level, but then I started thinking about what baby would be looking at. 

For example, I loved this simple mobile, but then I thought about what baby would be looking at and it seemed pretty boring. So I kept looking.

I finally found a Pinwheel mobile that I loved! Now to start crafting! I thought I would throw together a little tutorial on how I made the pinwheel mobile. 

Supplies:

12" wooden embroidery hoop

String (make sure it's the color you want because you will see it!)

Craft paper (Pick patterns or colors that match the nursery)

Glue stick

Hot Glue

Small Buttons

To pick out my paper I went to Michaels and bought a pad of scrapbooking paper so that I knew all the colors would coordinate. 

First cut your paper into 6.5" squares and glue (with a glue stick) the white sides together so that there is a fun print on each side. Next use a ruler or a straight edge and draw 2 diagonal lines from corner to corner to make an X on the square of paper. Cut from the corners towards the middle, but stop about an inch and a half away from the center. 

Now to make the pinwheel you are going to only glue down the right side of each triangle to the middle. Take the first corner and put a little bit of hot glue and press it onto the middle, continue all the way around. I then glued a small button in the middle to make it look a little cuter. 

Now this next part is a little confusing and I definitely just had to experiment a little to see what worked best. Take the inside hoop of the embroidery hoop and mark where you want each pinwheel to hang. I did 5 pinwheel around the outside. Then take the string and wrap it around the hoop a little and put a dap of glue on the inside to help secure it. Then trim the string leaving about 15 inches, enough to tied them all together in the middle. Do this at each of the markings. 

Once you have all the strings on, tie them in the middle of the hoop, this is where the center pinwheel will hang from. Now to fasten the pinwheels to the hoop! Measure what length you want the pinwheel to hang and cut a piece of string four times that length, yes I said four times! So if you want it to hang 7" down, you will cut a piece of string to 28". Double the string over and put it through a button and tie the button in the middle of the string. Then glue the button to the middle of the top side of the pinwheel. 

Then all you have to do is hot glue the top of the strings to the inside of the embroidery hoop where you wrapped the other string. 

I know that last bit was confusing! Sorry. You don't have to do exactly what I did, you might find a way to do this that is much simpler! 

But this is how mine turned out!

I personally love it! I tried to take more pictures, but the pinwheels like to spin so much it was kind of difficult, so I took a couple of videos to show you what it looked like! Sorry the mobile is on a hanger in a doorway, we haven't painted yet, so I haven't hung it up in it's official place quite yet. 

Anyways, I hope you all try this, I think it would be perfect for a boy or girl room! The spinning pinwheels are so much fun for baby to lay down and watch!