So coming up this September (or so) I will be MIA for a bit, and the shop will be closed temporarily while I’m on maternity leave! In preparation for the baby I’ve been working on a few handmade items. I found this fantastic tutorial, complete with patterns, on how to make a felt hot air balloon mobile. I’m not much of a sewer, but since this didn’t require a machine I thought it would be worth a try.

The setting is not so great since it’s currently hanging in the living room where I assembled it, but it will be going into our bedroom and then the nursery as the baby grows.

I made a few changes from the original tutorial. First, instead of a large embroidery hoop. I created a frame using sticks of craft wood from Michael’s that I nailed and glued together, and then added screw eyes to suspend the balloons/clouds since I had them leftover from the craft show card display.

For the patterns on the balloons, I followed a couple of the ideas from the tutorial and tried a few of my own.

Another change I made was that instead of using cork for the balloon baskets, I made tiny little felt baskets and suspended them from the balloons with embroidery floss.

I’m happy with how it turned out, and hopefully the baby will enjoy it too.