Solar System Mobile

<div align="center"><a href="http://tamingthegoblin.com" title="Taming the Goblin"><img src="http://rainydaymum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/World_Space_Week_2012.png" alt="Taming the Goblin" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Its World Space week and I have joined a Space blog hop. If you have space based posts please link them below. I'm linking up my latest craft project:

My friends are breeding and as a result we are having many baby showers.  I made my last pregnant friend a Gobbi Mobile so with a new baby shower looming I set to work. I decided to be slightly more adventurous this time having (or so I thought) mastered the art of making felt balls. I decided to make a Solar System mobile. So with my trusts Ladybird Mini - Mad About Space book as a reference I set about making a stack of little planets. 

This was as much a stash busting exercise as it was a philanthropic gesture to a dear chum, so rather than just make one set, I decided to make two. 

It didn't take me long to realise that larger balls are significantly harder to make with any degree of success than small ones. In fact I wasn't great at the small ones either. I have since discovered Curly Birds handy tutorial, which had I read before embarking on this project would have saved me some time needle felting the lumps of wool into decent spheres post wet felting. Any how despite my best efforts to the contrary I seemed to manage successfully to make 18 planets.

Saturn and Uranus required rings for which I used thick jewellery wire. I heated up a poker and plunged it into the depth of the relevant planets. The in poked the wire ends into the hole and sealed them in with my glue gun. There are probably daintier ways to do it but it did the job.

Finally I sewed embroidery thread through each planet and strung them in order around the inner circle of an 8" Cross Stitch Embroidery Hoop  (the wooden ones are very cheap - unless you are my preggy friend in which case I spent a fortune, honest!).

I was super excited when I gave the mobile to my friend and as soon as she took it out of the box she recognised it as a solar system. I kept the other one for Goblin.

This blog hop has been brought to you by the letters S - P - A - C - E and the following blogs:

Rainy Day Mum, Nurturestore, Toddler Approved, Here Comes the Girls, 3 Dinosaurs, Mummy Mummy Mum, Science Sparks, Living Montessori Now, One Perfect Day, K C Edventures, Taming the Goblin

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Montessori Mobile

Friends of mine are expecting a baby soon. I thought I'd make them a mobile. I'd seen Gobbi Mobiles when Goblin was a baby and thought they were lovely, but pricey. But I read a basic tutorial on Art Club Blog about how to make felt balls, and decided I could do a DIY job. 

The Gobbi mobile is part of the Montessori Visual Mobile series. You can read more about the series at  At Home with Montessori who describe the Gobbi as "The third mobile in the Visual Mobile Series, the Gobbi Mobile is a set of small spheres in graded shades of one colour. This mobile is presented to infants between 7 and 10 weeks old. It represents a further step in the development of the child's visual sense, in which she can now perceive more subtle variations in colour. The mobile is named for Gianna Gobbi, an Assistant to Infancy trained by Maria Montessori." 

The balls are normally in a straight line, but I used a bit of artistic licence to hang them in a spiral. When the mobile spins it will look like they are moving up and down.

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Felt leaf mobile

(Goblin is 29 months)

I have been a bit of a slacker when it comes to decorating Goblin's season tree. I managed to put up some valentine hearts but haven't got round to anything for spring. So this weekend I made some felt leaf mobiles to hang on the branches. 

I made some felt using lots of different green wool roving I had - If you have never felted before its really easy, I did a beginners tutorial here (I am still a beginner but I have pretty much mastered felt squares). On one of the pieces I added some cut offs from the hair of the first Waldorf doll I made (it was such beautiful wool I couldn't resist keeping it - I'm such a craft horder).

I made some leaf templates and cut out the felt leaves. 

I took embroidery thread, tied a knot in the bottom and did a running stitch through the first leaf. Then left a space of about an inch and a half and tied another knot to keep the second leaf in place, before sewing running stitch through a second leaf, and repeating with the third.

I managed to get six strings out of my two sheets of felt. I hung them on Goblin's tree and when he came down from his nap he said "Oooh wow, leaf, tree" - I'm thinking that is a good response.

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