DIY Butterfly Mobile

I spent some time yesterday finishing the mobile I had planned for the nursery.  I was inspired by Pottery Barn Kids' one, but couldn't really justify the $59 price tag.  

While I liked the look of the all white butterflies, but I really wanted to add more color since the walls will be tan, so I found mostly 2-sided scrapbooking paper or cardstock that coordinates with the fabrics I will be using in the room.  I spent about $8 on paper for this project, plus used some that I already had in my stash.  I busted out my brand new Cricut machine (a little Black Friday steal that was a total gift to myself!) and got to work cutting out approximately 100 little butterflies! They ranged from 1.5"-3" on the Cricut dial, and I used the Give a Hoot and Picturesque cartridges to get the different butterflies I liked.   I'm sure you could find die cuts already made at Joann's or Michael's, or you could go to a scrapbooking store and borrow/rent their Cricut machine for a few hours to cut out what you want.  

I didn't really take step-by-step photos after this, because stringing the butterflies and attaching them to the hoops kept both of my hands busy! But, the basics steps are that I used clear fishing line type wire and I cut 8 21" lengths of wire, and 6 18" lengths.  Then I used a needle to poke 2 little holes in the center of each butterfly, then threaded 4-6 butterflies on per strand (4 on the 18" lengths of wire, 6 on the 21" lengths), going from the bottom butterfly to the top.  I used a little hot glue to fix the bottom one on each strand so it didn't slide off, but the rest of the butterflies didn't really slide on the wire since the needle holes were small enough.   For the base of the mobile, I deconstructed a pre-fab wreath base from Michaels (about $1.79) that had 4 hoops connected by wires (like this):

At first I was going to paint it whole with all 4 hoops, but it ended up looking pretty sketchy and just home-made, so I took it apart with some pliers and wrapped 2 of the hoops in satin ribbon, fixing the ends with hot glue to make sure it won't unravel.  Using coordinating thread, I tied the 2 hoops back together at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock positions to form the 2-hoop base, similar to how the wires were holding it together to begin with.  

Then, using the hot glue gun, I put a little dab of glue at evenly spaced points around the hoops (one at a time, of course, or it wouldn't have been so hot), and attached the 6 18" strands around the outer hoop, and the 8 21" strands around the inner hoop. I cut 4 lengths of ribbon to hang the mobile from, and glued those in equal spacing around the outer hoop.   

Close view

Hanging over the changing table

Whole room perspective