DIY Felted Bunny Baby Crib Mobile

I finally finished it!  This one had been on my craft list for a while.  I’m really excited to be done with it, as seeing it hang makes me feel that much closer to meeting my baby girl!  I was just going to take a few pics of it, but then I thought I might as well add a few pictures of the process as a mini-tutorial.

It was really simple and there is a lot of flexibility with this project.  I feel like you could add as many or as few bunnies as you wanted, and hang them at different lengths or all together.  If I’m ever blest with a baby boy, I’ll probably make different animals too!

Supplies:

• wool rovings (can be bought online or in Hobby Lobby)
• felting needle and finger guards (I bought this starter kit)
• foam punching board (Hobby Lobby for 3.99, or here, or as part of this starter kit)
• floral wire wreath form (I got mine at Hobby Lobby for 1.99, but this one is cheap too)
• paint/spray paint
• clear thread and needle
• crib mobile arm (I bought this one and LOVE it)

Step One: Felt Your Animals

This one is the biggest and first step.  In order to create your mobile, you first have to choose and make your animals!  I chose to make bunnies, since that is the theme of my nursery.  I plan to make a full-length post all about how to needle felt (and most specifically how I needle felted these bunnies).  But in the meantime, you can visit this page for a quick tutorial, as it’s what I used for inspiration in felting my first bunnies!

Step Two: Spray Paint Your Wreath Form

A lot of homemade mobiles use embroidery hoops like this.  But I was worried the metal clamp would make my mobile unbalanced, and my husband was worried about suspending anything with a metal clamp above the baby.  We bought this floral wreath (it was originally green) and my husband spray painted it white for me.  You could paint it virtually any color, with regular paints or with spray pain.

Step Three: Thread the Bunnies Onto the Wreath Form

I have seen some mobiles with dark thread, and thick yarn is also an option.  I chose to use invisible thread to attach the decorations, just because I’m making a small mobile.  A bunch of strings would be overbearing for the small bunnies and mobile, and it will look better on my mini-crib to have invisible strings.

Anyway, tie a double knot at the end of your thread, so that they are knotted together.  Insert the needle into the tummies of the animals, and up through their bodies.  Then, with the bunnies still hanging at the end of the needle, use the needle end to tie a secure double knot around one of the wire circles.  Cut the excess thread (bunny will be suspended by two strings through it’s tummy, or neck depending on how tilted your animal looks on the string). For double security, use a thread twice the length you normally would, begin in the belly of the bunny, pass the needle through it’s back, over and around one of the wire circles, and then back through the bunny’s back, exiting out the tummy.  Then you can tie the knot at the base of the tummy, and your bunny will be secured by 4 strands instead of 2.  (If bunny rotates too much, you can knot the 4 strands together up near the wire circle).

Repeat until all the bunnies, hearts, and other animals or baubles are attached.

Step Four: Add Strings for Hanging the Mobile

To hang the mobile as evenly as possible, I cut four identical lengths of yarn and looped each one around the inside circle of the wreath form.  Then I knotted all four together in one big knot so that the weight of the mobile would be evenly distributed.  To attach it to the mobile arm loop, I used a wire twist tie, because it was flexible and easy to adjust.  You could use anything to attach it, really.

Step Five: Attach the Mobile to the Crib Arm

This step will be dependent on what kind of mobile you bought.  My crib mobile arm has a plastic loop to suspend the mobile from, so for me it was simply a matter of securing the mobile with a good knot through the loop.  The hardest part was making sure my mobile hung evenly.  I used yarn because it was easiest to measure and I like the way it looked.  Again, the type of twine (invisible thread, yarn, etc) is optional but this is what I went with, based on what my crib looks like.

Step Six: (Optional) Finishing Touches

If you used invisible thread like I did, you might see your knots slipping a bit.  Even my triple and quadrupled knots looked like they were opening up a bit.  I dabbed a bead of “Jeweler’s Glue” on each knot, and that helped a lot.  You can also tie a bow (I did) over the mobile’s suspension knot, just for a more polished look and to cover up any possible twist-tie visibility.  I thought my bunnies and heart were tightly enough felted that they weren’t going to come apart.  But if you’re worried about them getting “fuzzy” over time, I believe a light coat of hairspray could be helpful.  Just make sure you know what kind of finish it has, because a sticky mobile would be so frustrating!

And that is pretty much it!  Again, I plan to make a tutorial on how exactly I felted the bunnies, but if there is another aspect of the process you want more details on, leave a comment below!!  And if you make your own mobile, tag me on instagram or send it to me on pinterest so I can see it.  I’d love to know what you did!

Note: If I was going to buy a mobile, it would be this little Lambs & Ivy mobile (which happened to be at the top of my baby registry list for a while).  But now that I have made my own, I’m even happier with the results.  I hope my baby will love it!