Our Trek: My DIY Baby Project: Felt Bird Mobile

While some moms make toys, blankets, and even clothes for their babies, I didn't want to spend a lot of time absorbed in projects during my pregnancy. However, I really wanted to make one project for my baby.

I've seen a lot of really cool felt creations around the internet, and I decided to make some felt birds and put them together in a mobile. This was probably not the best project to select because 1) I had never done anything like it before and can't sew well enough to hold a button on securely and 2) I'm a perfectionist. But whether it's because I majored in art in college or because of the do-it-yourself attitude I inherited from my father, I tend to think I can create things using any medium.

My mom is a bird watcher who can identify just about any local bird by sight or sound. As a toddler I learned not what a bird says but what a cardinal says and what a chickadee says. I've taught Nathan to identify the birds we see most commonly around here and look forward to teaching Evan to do the same.

I wanted the birds to be colorful while keeping true to the natural colors of local birds. I also wanted to include black and white patterns to interest a newborn.The birds I selected were the downy woodpecker, chickadee, bluebird, goldfinch, and cardinal. Nathan's favorite bird is the chickadee because of their jubilant "party in the air" way of flying, which I never even noticed until he made the observation. Bluebirds are my mom's favorite birds, and my grandma loved cardinals. It's a family tree of sorts.

I found the patterns for the woodpecker, goldfinch, and chickadee on Downeast Thunder Farm. Their bluebird and cardinal patterns are older and the body shapes didn't seem quite right, so I made my own. (Like I said, perfectionist.)

It wasn't until after Evan was born that I finally put them together as a mobile. I'd never made a mobile before either and I wasn't sure how best to do it until I saw the bird mobile Carmen of Life Blessons made for her daughter using a photoclip mobile. Evan was five weeks old at that point, so I decided there's a time to DIY and a time to just get it done and ordered one for my felt birds.

It took a lot of time, effort, and frustration but a lot of love went into it as well. And most importantly, Evan loves it! It hung over the changing table until we moved him into his own room, and then Nathan put it above Evan's bed. Sometimes all I have to do is spin the mobile and he drifts off to take a nap.