DIY colorful mobile, part 2.

Yesterday, I posted Part 1 of the steps I took to make my little one’s colorful mobile, so if you haven’t seen that post, go there first. I ended with sewing all the velum strips, so let’s start there.

 

Once I finished sewing the three sections, I taped them to the ceiling to see how it would look. Notice that the bottom few strips start to curl up…

The solution for that issue is fishing weights. I bought these at Walmart for under $4. I also had the mug hooks {also from Walmart, I think} for another project.

So I moved the three taped mobile pieces on the ceiling to the exact spot I wanted, right above the crib. I carefully took them down, but left the tape in place on the ceiling to give me a guide of where to hang the hooks. I drilled a pilot hole over the tape…

Then, because I wanted to try to not use any anchors {but I knew the hooks would fall right out of the plaster} I tried some joint compound in the pilot holes. The mobiles are really lightweight, but I knew that even just the hooks would fall out of the plaster ceiling. My hope is that the joint compound would dry/harden around the hooks making them secure in the ceiling, without any threat of the mobile falling on our daughter. I’ve yet to test how strong they are because I just finished this project, but I’ll let you know if this doesn’t work.

So this is the hole filled with wet joint compound…

 

And then I screwed the hooks into it {while it was still wet}, and left them alone for 24 hours to dry {according to the joint compound package instructions.}

In the meantime, I carefully tied a small fishing weight onto the end of each of the three pieces. I tied a bajillion knots to make sure that the weight wouldn’t ever fall off.

Then at the other end, I managed to tie similar sized loops to create a means to hang the mobiles. I made sure that the loop wasn’t just one layer of thread. You can see in the photo below that the loop is made of lots of layers of thread…

And that’s it, folks. Once your hooks are solid and dry, you can hang ‘em up proudly…

Here’s the full picture with the crib {bedding’s just temporary}. I love the lightness of the mobile…

And here’s a close up of the ends with the weights. Pretty…

And with more of the room, including the orange refinished changing table {post coming soon}…

More close-ups…

And this is the fun view our little one will have. Love it!

So there ya have it – the one project I knew I was going to do for the nursery, years before I was pregnant. I love the way it turned out, how inexpensive it was, and the relative ease of the project.

All the colors make me happy. Hopefully it will also make our little girl happy {and sleepy}! :)

DIY colorful mobile, part 1.

Years ago, I saw a really pretty velum DIY hanging wedding decoration on a website {maybe Martha Stewart?} I kept it in the back of my mind, hoping that one day I’d be blessed with a little one who could stare at the colorful decoration as a mobile. Praise the Lord, I’m preparing for that day now.

How about I throw ya a bone and show ya the final product before we dive into the details? Here’s the completed colorful mobile…

Now here is the first half of the steps…

I bought about 16 sheets of colorful velum paper {waxy, see-through stuff) at Hobby Lobby for various prices. Most were $0.69 or $0.50 and then 40% off for a sale. But I got a few that were marked 6/$1 on clearance. So all in all, I spent less than $6 on it.

The next step was to orientate the paper horizontally and cut 1” strips of all the paper. {Does anyone else still think “hot dog” vs. “hamburger” when doing crafts with the paper vertical or horizontal? Okay, maybe it’s just me.}

I was a bit frustrated because the price tags left a residue, so I set the strips that had the sticky marks on them to the side. I never ended up using these. Maybe I’ll come up with another project for these sad reject strips. Here are my pretty 1” x 8.5” strips…

 

The dark blue had a tendency to curl a bit, so they rested under a heavy book for a few days. The next step was to lay out the color pattern and length of the strips of mobiles. I wanted to do three hanging pieces to make the mobile, and I also knew I didn’t want all three to be the same exact length. I taped some yarn to the ceiling to judge how long I wanted them and used my yarn as my guide for laying out the strips of velum. I kept the same color pattern throughout, but made sure each of the three portions started and ended with different colors.

Then, I measured on my sewing machine where the edge of the velum strip would go if I sewed directly down the center of the strips. See the masking tape on the machine? That was my guide to help ensure I sewed in the middle of all the strips…

I used a long, straight stitch with white thread. Once the needle made it to the end of one strip, I sewed 5 stitches before adding my next strip. By counting the stitches in between, I knew all my strips would have even spacing.

See how that works?

Stay tuned for part two tomorrow. :)

P.S. hope ya’ll had a happy Valentine’s Day yesterday. Whether it was a romantic and happy day for you or a disappointing and lonely one, please remember that you are His and He loves you so much that he delights in you and rejoices over you!

“For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” Zephaniah 3:17

Much love to my online friends.

A Witt weekend.

Saturday was the banner ceremony recognizing the Wittenberg Volleyball team for winning the National Championship this year. The alums were invited back to be recognized for providing the foundation to reach the goal. It wasn’t necessary to recognize us, but it was really appreciated that they did. We all cared and still care so much about that program and team and, for many if not all of us, winning the championship this year was a huge achievement that felt just ever so slightly “ours” too. :)

My classmates and I met up a bit early to exchange some long-overdue Christmas gifts, catch up on life, and smash some food {just like old times, ha!} We had some “to die for” cupcakes…that’s literally the shop’s name, and it’s neighboring shop is a cemetery tomb-stone store. A little creepy, but man they were good!

One reason I love these girls is because I can always count on them to share desserts with me. It’s a given – dessert is a must and we’ll all eat some of it so there’s less guilt in devouring the entire thing!

We also enjoyed some of Paco’s salsa and veggies. I killed the carrots; for some reason, those have been really hitting the spot the last few months.

 

We were missing one friend, but it was so great to see these beauties again. Love them!

After our little get together, we went to the local hot-spot Mike & Rosey’s for dinner and then to the Witt vs. Wooster rival basketball game.

The banner ceremony was at halftime…

It was really neat to see how many alums returned to share in the celebration.

Ahh, that looks good…

The whole team pic {from our local newspaper}…

It was a definite wondrous thing to get to hang out and catch up with all these friends again…

Tigers pride!

Twenty-two weeks.

I’m twenty-two weeks pregnant now. My belly has changed {grown} so much in the last two weeks. I’m now getting a comment here and there from strangers asking when I’m due. Our daughter’s around 1 lb now, which is crazy to me. How can I gain 10 lbs and she’s only 1 lb of it?! Fascinating stuff.

Feeling tons of movement, especially to music. And for some reason, the last two weeks I’ve craved baked-goods and sweets hardcore. Pre-pregnancy, I was a 100% dessert kind of girl, but the second I got pregnant, all desserts became repulsive to me…until week 20. Life Savers, brownies, cookies, cake – yes please!

Oh, and my baby girl had a crazy past 5 days. She met 50 or so NATO members, and then with less than 24 hours notice, we coordinated a rally for Newt Gingrich at one of my work’s venues on Tuesday. C.R.A.Z.Y. days. However, I’ll be sure to tell her someday that a Presidential Candidate asked when she was due! ;)

I’m not sure how she is feeling after those 5 days, but man am I exhausted! My poor body is not quite as resilient as it was 5 months ago, but I’ll take every minute of the soreness – she’s oh so worth it. :)

Randomness.

Here’s a few photos from what I’ve been up to lately.

This scary sight is our spare bathroom wall…

 

 

The weather has been so nice I was able to do some painting outside…

I tried out this recipe, but with my morning sickness & sensitive nose {along with the fact that I just don’t think it turned out quite as I expected} – I probably won’t be making this one again. Not sure why, but the smell of this bread made me so nauseous. Looks pretty though!

And this is a project that I’m just about finished with. Super pumped about it.

So that’s a random mix of some things I’ve been working on lately, oh and being a walking incubator for our little girl. ;)

Moving the guest room.

You may have noticed, the little one’s room was, in the beginning, our “guest room.” We don’t have real provisions for a guest room, but we work with what we have since we rarely have overnight guests anyway. In order to work on the little one’s room, we had to move out the twin bed, dresser, and other items into the spare room. The rooms still extremely rough around the edges…floral border, 3 legged fan, plain white walls. But in the spirit of the truth, I’m keeping it real here.

Here’s what our spare room currently looks like…

 

Since I don’t know what color scheme I want to use yet for this rom, I only had one extra panel of curtains, so what’s a girl to do? I used my pashminas and scarves to give me some much-needed privacy since I get dressed here in the mornings!

And yes, I’m dealing with our poor dismembered fan and the floral border. {It’s not nearly as bad as our old pink & floral bathroom!)

So it will work. I may turn it into an office in the future, but for now, it’s at least tolerable while we focus on renovating the little one’s room. :)