I was so excited to show you all the baby’s room a few weeks back and have finally gotten around to writing up the first of several tutorials. This modern baby mobile was really easy to put together and coming in at $25, a nice addition to the room without blowing our (very) small budget.
First things first, gather all your materials:
- 10 round wooden beads in your preferred size (they didn’t have any big enough at Michaels, so I used doll heads)
- 3/16″ dowel rods (I got two 4′ rods)
- Drill and drill bits (1/16″ and 3/16″)
- Wood glue
- Black jewelry wire
Start by cutting your dowels to size. I cut one 12″ length, two 10″ lengths, and two 8″ lengths.
Next, using your 3/16″ bit, carefully drill into the wooden beads about 1/2″ or so. (As you can see, because I used doll heads there is already a large hole in the bead so I obviously drilled into that with my smaller bit.)
Once all your holes are drilled, you’re going to attach the dowels to the beads. Put a small amount of wood glue into your hole and insert the dowel until it is nice and snug.
If any glue overflows out onto the surface of your bead (I did not have to worry about this due to the fact that my beads were actually doll heads) make sure to wipe it all off because it will dry yellow. You may notice that my doll heads alternate in size: they came in packages with some larger than others, so I made it work and I actually like how the varied sizes turned out.
Allow the dowels to dry for about 25-30 minutes.
Once they’ve had a chance to dry, find the center of each dowel, and using your 1/16″ drill bit, carefully drill through the dowel. It helps to do this on a scrap piece of wood so you don’t drill down into the surface you’re working on. Matt also very unhelpfully pointed out that I should have drilled these holes before attaching the wooden beads. Whatever….piss off, amirite?
Now you’re ready to string your dowels onto the jewelry wire. I don’t have any pictures of this process, unfortunately, as it was a LOT of trial and error to get the dowels hanging in a way that was visually pleasing. My advice would be to cut a long length of the wire, string them all through, and then play around with them after it is hanging up. It is way easier to manipulate them and see how they will tilt.
To hang the mobile, I mounted a white ceiling hook into the stud above the change table, made a loop with the end of the wire, and hung it off the hook. It really doesn’t get much easier.
I love how easy this was to throw together. I knew I wanted something clean, simple, and modern, and that’s exactly what this is.
If you’re interested, you can check out the entire nursery here.
I don’t think this is necessarily a project that needs to be relegated to a baby’s room, either: the potential for this is endless! Thanks for stopping by and as always, let me know what you guys think in the comments!
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