Baby Cot Mobile Spring Birds tutorial

Today I will share with you how I made this beauty. My inspiration for this piece was my not yet born baby girl... Bring on 8th November...heh So a while back I found this on the web: Brid Mobile This is a project from Disney Family Fun website. It involves printing those shapes of birds on a paper then cutting gluing both sides and putting the string through. I loved the birds on this mobile but wanted something more durable than paper!

I decided to use felt because is lightweight, doesn't fray, comes in loads of lovely colors, is durable, is soft and easy to work with, can be sewn, appliqué or glued.

 

I've cut out the templates out of paper and then used different colors of felt to decorate the birds so they look more like those on the picture of the template.
I've made some decorative stitching with embroidery thread, put fronts and backs together and sew them using blanket stitch, before I've closed the outer stitching I've stuffed those birds with some wadding (batting) so they don't look flat.

To put those up I've designed special holder, kind of bird cage looking. I've used for that some mount board, cut the shape (needs loads of hard work this one, it isn't easy to cut complicated shapes out of mount board, you will need very sharp craft knife! and don't cut yourself!) then I've decoupage the shapes with colourful papers.

 

You can download template for this one that I've designed: just print out this images on A4 paper they should be on the whole page of A4.

 

 

After I've decoupage it I've punched the holes where I wanted the ribbon to go to hold my birds. Tied everything together added some letters to spell my baby's name and here it is lovely girly baby mobile to hang in her room.

 

You can download the birds template from here: printable PDF birds mobile

Here are couple more mobiles that I've made, if you would like a special template to make your own mobile please contact me, I can design something extraordinary for you for really small fee up to a £2 at most.

Owl baby girl mobile no fuss ready handmade available to purchase through my Etsy store: Owl baby mobile

 

 

 

Penguin baby boy mobile no fuss ready handmade available to purchase through my Etsy store: penguin baby mobile

Thanks for looking! Have fun making your own baby cot mobile!

which is the foxiest of them all?

As you might know I'm making few cold/ heat rice packs in a shape of woodland animals. Recently I bought some felt and cannot decide what color combination to use for the actual products. have a look at my foxy board and choose which you like best! Thank you. Fox cold/heat rice pack owl pocket warmer heart owl pocket warmer

Cold/ heat packs, wheat bags, rice bags, hand warmers Design Ideas

Today I'm experimenting with couple of felting techniques like needle felting and felting appliqué. My design idea is to create unusual, unique personalized hand warmers or if you prefer cold/ heat pack or rice bag, wheat bag. I really like the product from WormeWoole on Etsy they are really cute and I think something like that will go very nicely with my products that are Muffs hand warmers and bags MKT Design muff bag owl. So I experiment and here is my journey:

Hand stitched felt shapes Owl fox and more filled with rice....

Very nice shape and all. BUT... heats nice and stays warm for long time, cooling: bad... doesn't stay cool, felt prevents it from getting really cold even if in freezer couple nights.. Other issue is hand stitching, looks lovely but takes really long time with the details and all.
Conclusion: Price point too expensive, doesn't stay cold:(

Needle felting: Felt on felt: tried to needle felt my pre cut shapes to a larger piece of felt...ok attached nicely it isn't that sharp as the hand stitched shapes and the greatest disappointment is: try pulling on the edge of attached piece to see if is secure and guess what? it all came out... No No for needle felted owl design on my heat packs!:( what a shame

BUT.. here is a pleasant surprise... tried a loose merino wool floss or other and love the thing you can do with it.. like a letter and you wont be able to pull this out;) Will need to incorporate that in my design... I've tried to write something...
-unfortunately my skills aren't advanced enough and one letter that was nice I've made by mistake :P heh

 

and love the simple 3D shapes, had some flower shapes cut out from felt and decided to play with it too.. and have a look-see... started from the middle and got pretty little 3D flower sticking out... this will be nice for e.g. hair clips or hair bands or something?
Conclusion:needle felting maybe nice for some but for me isn't working unless the 3d shapes. who knows future projects??..

Last but not least machine sewn felt shapes: ok I think it looks good, I've tried appliqué on bigger piece and also cut out shape and can manage to make both with pleasing results...

 

 

how to make them into a heat/cold pack?

 

 

attached them to a 100% cotton fabric, one with nice designs and voila! cotton is better for cold packs and felt at the front better to keep warmth. Plus got unusual and personalized designs.

 

Conclusion:Job well done, if I may say so myself;)

Now need to make a variety of stock and include them in my Etsy and Folksy shop!