DIY Fabric Pom Pom Mobile & A Winner!

Happy Monday! We had a great weekend filled with family and friends, and today I begin training the girl who will cover me while I'm off on mat leave for the next year. The count down is officially on. Only 13 more days of work... Nutso!

Before I announce the winner of my Ramsign giveaway, I wanted to share with you a project that I've been working on for a little while now. A DIY mobile for the Peanut's nursery. I got the basic idea from this tutorial over at once wed for DIY Fabric Poms - and made a few adjustments so that it would work for me.

Then I pulled together all of my materials...

Items You Need:
- Styrofoam Balls (I got 1.5" and 2" from the Dollar Store, but only used the 1.5" ones)
- Fabric (I used two different solid colours)
- Glue Gun
- Embroidery Hoop
- Rope, Yarn, Ribbon, Fishing wire (I originally started with twine, but moved to Fishing line in order to get that "floating feeling" for my Poms)
- Something round to trace (I used the top of a paint tube and the size worked well)
- Scissors


Step 1: I took the inside of the embroidery hoop and painted it white, as I wanted the pom poms to stand out, and not the hoop itself. 

Step 2: Set your hoop aside to dry, while you trace and cut out many, many little circles of fabric...




... Trust me... you'll cut WAYYYY more circles than this. I'm saying you need somewhere between 40 and 50 per pom-pom (of course depending on the size of your styrofoam balls).

Step 3: Once your little circles are cut, you can begin gluing them onto your styrofoam balls (or whatever round object you choose to use). As per the tutorial, fold each circle in half, add a small dab of hot glue on the flat side of the circle, near the bottom and fold in half again. Then add a small line of glue along the folded edge of your circle and apply to your styrofoam ball. Then glue away.

You'll find your own pattern and way of gluing on your little fabric pieces to make the pom pom look right. I started off putting them too close together, which I found didn't make it look fluffy enough, so I started to space them out more as I went.

Step 4: Before you ball is full of fabric, put a small dab on hot glue directly onto the styrofoam ball and insert one end of fishing line. Hold it in place until it dries and cut fishing line to desired length (we found that longer was better so we could adjust the length when we were ready to attach it to the hoop.

Step 5: Take your fishing line and tie it across the hoop to create quarters. (I probably should've taken a photo of this step... but of course neglected to. My apologies. I blame the baby brain for that one!) We made sure to tie it nice and tight, as this is how we planned to hang it. Once tied, we used a small amount of hot glue to ensure the fishing line was firmly attached to the hoop and wouldn't slide.


Step 6: After putting a screw into the window frame over the foot of her crib, B used a ribbon to hang the hoop.

Step 7: Tie on the pom poms at alternating heights until the hoop is balanced. Don't tie them on too tight, as you may need to slide them around a little to get everything balanced properly.

Step 8: Trim your ribbon and extra length of fishing line and enjoy your pretty little mobile (we're pretty happy with how it turned out...)

We're starting to feel pretty ready for this little peanut to arrive, and have another update to share later this week (hint: artwork has started to go up on the walls!). Yup... things are starting to feel pretty real, and that's a good thing as my due date is just a little over four weeks away. Wow!

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for - the winner of my Ramsign giveaway! Thanks so much to Ramsign for offering up one of their signs for one of my lucky readers, and thank you to everyone who participated! We had a total of 15 comments left, and after using random.org to generate a winner (between 1 and 15) we came up with lucky #4!

Congrats to Hilary over at My So Called Home! Lucky Hilary is actually in the process of buying her first house and I hope that this pretty little sign is the perfect addition to help turn your new house into a home! I'll contact you with details on how to claim your prize!