Cloud Mobile for the Babe!

The nursery is still in the works, but man, I am SO in love with how this latest project turned out for it! I'm hoping Elizabeth will look up and enjoy this wonderful cloud mobile her mother and father made just for her!

Just to recap, we're going for an arctic theme in the nursery with plenty of bears and wood accents for a more natural feel...no clue how well we're succeeding at this but I like how its coming together. And I found this adorable cloud mobile on Pinterest and really wanted to try my hand at making it myself (with the help of Charlie, of course).

Pinterest

We already had some scrap wood downstairs for the cloud pieces so it was just finding the string and different sized wooden balls. Obviously, my go-to craft store Michaels came to the rescue!

1. Drill Holes. The wooden balls I found at Michaels were perfect but they didn't have pre-drilled holes in them so Charlie and I had to drill them ourselves. We used a bar clamp to secure the balls while drilling so our hands didn't have to get too close...safety first, people!

2. Placement & Paint. First, I wanted to see how all this would layout to make sure I didn't need any more balls or clouds. I used my rotary circle cutter to cut out mock clouds and imagined six strings like in the Pinterest photo. I then used paint I already had to paint the balls grey, blue, or white, leaving some unpainted so I could stain them to match the clouds.

3. Cloud Cutouts. Again, I used this rotary circle cutter to make traceable templates of the clouds from construction paper. This was my method for both the small and large cloud and I think it worked out. And I have to say, Charlie did an AMAZING job cutting out these clouds with our jigsaw. It definitely took some patience and a little self-forgiveness but we both were happy with the end result. We then used forstner drillbits to make flat-bottomed holes in the large cloud to better hide the string knots. Then I sanded down all the rough edges and wiped the pieces down.

4. Prep, Stain, Seal. Like always, before staining I prepped the clouds and balls with Minwax Pre-stain and then used a rag to apply Minwax Mahogany stain. I used Minwax Polyurethane to seal.

5. String. Next I worked on stringing up the balls and clouds and reworking all the heights until I liked the end result. I definitely ran out to get more balls at this point that were even smaller to add some more variety.

6. Hang it up. You'd think this would be super easy but Charlie and I get a little caught up in details when it comes to lengths and balance. It all worked out and we were able to hang the mobile from the ceiling with your standard ceiling hook. Before hanging it up for good, we used a lighter to burn/seal all the string ends so they wouldn't unravel. As the babe starts to sit up and stand, we'll obviously be lowering the crib mattress and raising the mobile in case anyone is concerned about that.

Again, we are THRILLED with the outcome and are happy we tried it out and didn't just spend $70 (plus shipping) on a baby mobile. Now we just need to actually start hanging decor on the walls and maybe the nursery will feel finished. I'm 35 weeks now so we don't have many more weekends for these projects!

#nursery #nurserydecor