DIY Butterfly Mobile: See Spawnie's and How to Make Your Own!

Blogging has sorta been pushed to the back burner a little while while I've been going through my massive crafting nesting phase! I need to come up with a system where I have time for both. I think I'm going to need to save crafting for my days off because it can take up so much time in the evenings when I get home from work. I think as time goes on and I get more experience (I'm NOT a crafty person) I'll get faster but for now I'll enjoy being a slow poke and seeing my finished product weeks later!The first project I've been working on is a butterfly mobile for the nursery. I didn't like any of the regular store-bought kind, they just were to kiddish for me, so I looked up butterfly mobiles and decided to attempt to make my own! Now I'm going to try something else... I'm attempting to write my FIRST Do it Yourself post and share what I learned with you in case you want to try!

Beware for a lot of photos coming! I'll do my best to describe how I made it!

First, here's what you'll need:
-Scrapbook paper and cardstock paper in your desired colors
-A butterfly cutout about 3" by 3" in heavy paper or cardstock
-A 14", 16", or 18" wooden embroidery hoop (depending how large you want your mobile to be)
-(3) strips of 1/2" balsa wood
-Acrylic paint (the color you want the base of your mobile to be)
-Nylon thread (or something like beading thread or fishing wire)
-A needle
-32 small crystal beads
-About 32 other crystal beads in the color you like to make your mobile shine!
-(1) metal or plastic ring
-Scissors, glue, pencil

1. Take a traceable picture of a butterfly you like the shape of and use that as your template. I used a butterfly that was about 3" by 3". Trace the butterflies on cardstock and/ or scrapbook paper.I used both because I liked some of the scrapbook paper I found, but it wasn't strong enough for it to stay bent the way I wanted.

2. Cut out all of the butterflies you've traced. I cut out about 200 butterflies total (though I didn't use them all) and matched the scrapbook paper butterflies with color-coordinating cardstock. I folded the paper and cardstock to make the cutting quicker. I matched a pair of cardstock buterflies with a pair of scrapbook butterflies so four total.

I ended up using 128 cut out butterflies total. 64 of them cardstock butterflies and 64 scrapbook paper butterflies.

3. Glue the cardstock butterflies and coordinating scrapbook paper butterflies together and trim around the edges to they match up. You've now glued two seperate butterflies together so there's cardstock on one side and scrapbook paper on the other. They look identical though. Then take the one of the butterflies and bend up the wings slightly. Put a little glue down the center of the bent butterfly (on the under side), then stick it to the butterfly that's not bent. You can match the colors in the center or have them both facing the same way, I alternated the direction I glued mine.
4. Make the base of the mobile by taking the center of the wooden embroidery hoop and evenly crossing strips of balsa wood to make 8 spokes.
5. Paint the wood in the color you desire, I painted mine using a metallic bronze.
6. Attach 8 equally-sized strands of ribbon, or the beading wire to the mobile base and then attach them all to a metal or plastic ring. This is what's used to hang the mobile from the ceiling. (Don't make my mistake and do this last... It's much easier to attach the ribbon or string before you have tons of butterflies dangling off of it.)

7. Take your beading wire and needle and thread the wire through the butterflies and beads you desire. Then tie them to the spokes around the base of the mobile.Here's how I spread mine out:
On the outer 8 spokes I had 2 butterflies dangling from each string.
In the middle I had 3 butterflies from a string on every-other spoke.
In the center there was the longest string with 4 butteflies dangling.

I added beads between the butterflies and at the very bottom of the string to weigh each strand down.Initially I had 3 butterflies hanging in the middle of all 8 spokes but I decided it was too much and went back and cut off every-other.
8. Find a pretty spot to hang it and show it off to the world! This is what Spawnie will be staring up at after she's born!

So what do you think? You going to try it?