Charley Harper/Kid Made Modern bird mobile

Man, life has been a little bit crazy around here since school started. I haven't been blogging as much, but I have been doing things. Knitting. Baking. Running Lo around to school and various activities. Hanging with the baby. And I painted this Kid Made Modern Charley Harper bird set. I even managed to make it into a mobile for Bowie's room. 

 

I know you have seen these super cool kits at Target. Ugh. They are so fantastic. I want them all. (I saw Halloween Kid Made Modern craft sets the other day, too! Fun.) So this is the set I used.

Here's what the wooden birds look like before you paint them. Lots of nice outlines to guide you, which makes this super easy. Gotta love Charley Harper's illustrations.

The kit comes with lots of paint (more colors than you'll need, which is great.) And it's not paint-by-number so you can feel free to do whatever you want. The brushes are included and they're really nice high-quality art brushes.

Want to make a mobile? Paint those birds. Done. So bright and awesome. I went over the black lines with a Sharpie after the paint dried, and painted the back of each piece with a solid color.

After all the pieces had been painted, I busted out my favorite Kikkerland Gallery Mobile (I have used this mobile several times before with other random projects.) Clips plus birds equals mobile.

So now this hangs in Bowie's room. He loves checking out the bright shapes and colors. (Safety note: if you hang a homemade mobile like this in a child's room, be sure it's well out of reach. We don't need babies trying to eat painted wooden birds. Seriously.)

It's kind of hard to get a good pic of this thing (because it keeps moving and twirling) but trust me, it's pretty. Yay, Kid Made Modern. Keep the awesome coming. I can't get enough. Check out another Kid Made Modern project that Lo and I made a couple of months ago, right here.

scooter mobile DIY

My latest baby-related project is this Vespa/scooter mobile. (Because if this little dude is going to be anything like his dad, he'll probably spend his nights dreaming of scooters.) It was a simple project to make, for a child's room or any room in your house, and you only need a few supplies.

Start with three to four sheets of coordinating craft foam. (Craft foam, you say?) Yeah. It sounds weird, but when you neatly cut craft foam into shapes and then hang them from the ceiling, they totally look like they're made from plastic or wood or something entirely different. Another bonus to craft foam (besides the fact that it's so inexpensive) is that it is really light-weight, so the mobile will turn and spin easily if there's a bit of airflow in your room. Along with the craft foam, you'll need to come up with a simple shape or two and make a template. I free-handed this template onto cardstock and cut it out, using the Lambretta on this mug from Starbucks as a guide. But you can also raid children's coloring books or look online for simple clip art/silhouettes that you can trace to make your template. Each shape should be about 3 to 4 inches wide, and different sized shapes (some small, some larger) will work well together.

Then, use your cardstock template to trace the images onto the craft foam, and cut them out using a sharp scissors.

Take your little fleet of Vespas (or what-have-you) and clip them to your mobile and that's pretty much it! The mobile I used here is a Kikkerland hanging photoclip mobile, but you can find similar clip mobiles anywhere and they're really inexpensive. (Plus, you can change it up any time you want.) Add the $10 mobile plus three or four sheets of craft foam and you've got a pretty spiffy little customized mobile for less than $15.

Saftey note: this mobile is not meant to hang near the crib or low enough where a baby could reach it. Ours is hung high on the ceiling above the crib to keep it safely out of reach. (The last thing I want to do is go into my baby's room only to find a foam Vespa in his mouth. Um, yeah.)

That's it! Lo has requested some pink and orange butterflies and birds for her room, so that's what I'll be making next. Hope you have fun making your own mobiles.  :)