Girly butterfly mobile

As a mom of boys, I don't often get the chance to take on girly/pretty/ruffly crafts. My guys are all about trucks and dinosaurs and stuff you can jump off of, and I love that. BUT, this was so much fun, and when I saw a version of it a post of Pottery Barn inspired decor on Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, I knew it would be a perfect as a 'room warming' gift to a little girl who will be moving part-time into a new bedroom in a new apartment soon. Hope she likes it.



My version is a little different than my inspiration, but I used what I had for materials, only having to purchase a small spool of ribbon for 50 cents to complete the project. The original uses an embroidery hoop as the circular frame. I didn't have a spare large hoop, so I rescued a dollar-store metal web trash can that was crumpled and heading into the trash and cut off the top rim and the entire bottom to form my frame.



I used some of the cheap ribbon to attach the two pieces, and then added more strings. The photo below reminds me of some weird sea creature.



Then I cut out 36 butterflies, 12 of each of three colours. I traced the form from a webpage and then simplified the shape a little to keep the lines fairly clean. I ended up with a few left over, but I made sure to have enough because I didn't want to go back to cutting!



After the butterflies were cut, I added two little slits to the body of each one, so I could slide the ribbons through. Slide may be an understatement...it was a bit of a chore (I recommend hanging it to adjust the placement). Once all the butterflies were in place, I strung beads on the ends of the ribbons. Was going to glue gun the ends for a nice finish, but got tired and had boys pulling at me, so went with quick knots instead.



I think the end result is pretty cute, especially for a 50-cent project...my husband wasn't so impressed until he learned it wasn't staying in our house. Men.

Linked to:

Tatertots and Jello Weekend Wrap Up -- my favourite project from 2010