Gender Neutral Modern Animal Nursery: DIY Felt Animal Mobile

Recently SOTD contributor Allie shared her Gender Neutral Modern Animal Nursery with us, showcasing her awesome home decorating and DIY skills. Today she’s back to share more details on that super adorable DIY Felt Animal Mobile she made for her son’s room!

Supplies:

• 2 Embroidery Hoops (I chose two different sizes)
• Yarn
• Decorative Ribbon
• Craft Fishing Line
• Felt (tip: I bought a big package of felt from the craft store when really, I only needed about one piece of 8.5” x 11” felt per color for the whole thing.)
• Stuffing
• Popsicle Stick (used for helping to stuff the animal shape)
• Scissors
• Needle and Thread
• Optional: additional decorative accessories like buttons or sequins

How to make a felt mobile: Yes, you can do this!

• Print silhouettes of animals then cut them out to use as templates. For each animal body, fold a piece of felt in half, trace and cut out the shape. This will give you two pieces which are mirrored shapes of one another for the front and back. Repeat to make cloud shapes. Tip: A little double sided tape may help keep the templates on the felt as you trace.
• Cut out the accent pieces needed for each animal. Example: giraffe spots, elephant ears, owl eyes etc

• Sew on the animal accents to one half of the animal body shape. Tip: Pay attention on how you attach shapes, like the elephant’s ears. Mine are flipped up which looks more than flying than flipped down which is how they are traditionally shown.
• Tip: besides felt, you can use other materials you already have on hand. For example, the owl above uses sequins left over from another project as the centers of his eyes. (NOTE: This mobile was meant to be looked at but not touched by little children!)
• Sew the back piece of felt onto each animal, leaving the knotted end of thread inside the two pieces and a small hole for stuffing.
• Stuff each of the animals. Tip: use the end of scissors or a popsicle stick to encourage the stuffing in to small areas.
• Sew the small hole shut.

• Wrap two embroidery hoops with yarn. Hang one below the other using decorative ribbon to attach. (I have also seen other options using crossed wooden dowels, or a single embroidery hoop)
• Hang the stuffed animals, clouds and single layer dot shapes on pieces of craft fishing line.

This was a fun and easy, yet time consuming, craft. When you’re at the point in the pregnancy where relaxing is a priority, this is a great project to tackle. I spent a few minutes each night for a few weeks working on different parts of the mobile and now it hangs in my son’s room!