I figure he spent the first nine months of his life cuddled up inside me, so really, being cuddled up against me on the outside is a big step towards independence.
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| He can even sleep through a trip to the beach, as long as he's got a good cuddle going! |
It does put a bit of a damper on my activities, though I'm learning how to get at least some of the housework done and how to get dinner ready with a sleeping baby attached to me.
I haven't gotten much crafting done since he was born (most crafting requires you to sit down and use your hands: I can generally only do one or the other, at most!), but recently my little guy has been more and more interested in studying his surroundings, and I decided he couldn't go any longer without a mobile. I had intended to make one before he was born (I have a picture of a wicked cute one I found online that I want to model it after) but it involved some sewing.
I got to the point of choosing fabrics and was crippled with indecision, so worked on other baby projects instead. (for some reason, committing to fabrics for this little mobile was more stressful to me than choosing the ones for his crib bedding!)
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| Mama and Daddy's bed is pretty comfy! |
One of my goals for this visit to Massachusetts (yes, Pippo and I are here!) is to get my mom to help me make the other one, both in the choosing fabrics department and in the extra pair of hands department. There's nothing wrong with having more than one cute mobile!
But for now, Pippo needed something pretty and interesting to look at, so here's what I came up with.
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| I've also strung a few little rattles and colorful toys across his crib on that ribbon, low enough for him to bat at them and make the bells jingle, of course. |
I made this entirely out of random little things I had around the house, while Pippo was napping in the moby. If you didn't have a sleeping baby strapped to your chest, I bet you could do it even more quickly!
The base is made out of a chocolate box that I couldn't bring myself to throw away (I have a hard time letting go of sturdy boxes, especially when they're pretty colors). This was from our honeymoon - we came back from dinner the forst night to find a delicious cheese platter and chocolates waiting for us in our room, sent by my sweet sister-in-law (I know, she is wonderfully thoughtful!).
I had put it in the baby's room with some other things I plan on putting to use there - I figured the color was cute, and once I realized it had an elephant on it, I was sold (they say that having a baby teaches you a lot about yourself: I have learned that I am a sucker for zoo animals - but especially elephants.)
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| A Pippo's-eye view. |
I decided to use some of the cute baby cards I had saved from shower gifts and things. Again, I couldn't quite bring myself to get rid of these, even the ones that didn't have anything in particular written in them. I really hate for cute or pretty papergoods to go to waste.
The orange lion and the little square card I cut into spirals following the shape of the card (for the square) or the design (for the lion). I just carefully pulled them out, making sure that the colorful side of the paper is facing down towards the baby. The others I cut into thin strips and made into little balls by gluing the ends together (I used a glue gun). One is glued in just one place (so that one strip equals the entire circumference of the sphere) and the others are glued at both ends to make a bigger ball (so it takes two strips to go all the way around). Does that make sense?
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| If I had been more careful, I would've made sure the frog ended up right-side-up. Oops! |
I used ribbon to hang them from the inside of the candy box - I tried pulling it through the end of the balls with a big needle, but between the cardstock and the glue, that ended up being rather difficult, and I gave that up after the first one. Hot-gluing the ribbon to each little paper doo-dad proved much easier, and they still can spin and move in a satisfying way. The spirals were easier to do with the needle.
The other ends are just scotch-taped to the inside of the box. The brown ribbon is part of the original chocolate packaging (I'm not a hoarder, really). I could take it all apart quite easily and switch out the doo-dads if I wanted to.
Simple-dimple! And all made using things that otherwise would've been thrown away. Pippo thinks it's great - it kept him happy the other day long enough for me to take a shower, and if that's not a successful mobile, I don't know what is!
