Whimsical Dragon Mobile
We're expecting a little bundle of joy this Christmas! With that said, we're in the process of creating the nursery for our little one. We aren't finding out the gender, so everything we plan for furniture and decor is all gender-neutral. We both love fantasy and I love all things whimsical, so our goal is to make the nursery feel like an Enchanted Forest. The full names we have picked out for both genders are very fantasy/fairy-tale inspired so it fits quite well!
Because I'm a crafty person, I really wanted to make something to add a more personal touch to the room and decided to make a mobile! Originally I was going to make a monochromatic mobile with multiple dragons flying around, but when I rummaged through the materials I have, I stumbled upon this BEAUTIFUL quality glitter paper that I had kept for years. This paper is actually from my husband's grandmother who let me keep it long before we even dated and I have always wanted to make something with it but couldn't find the right project, until now!
LET'S GET STARTED
Here are the materials you'll need:
+ Thick silver and gold glitter paper (make sure it's not the kind that sheds a lot of glitter!)
+ Needle felting supplies (needles, brush or foam)
+ Scissors
+ Clear glue
+ Wooden bead
+ Pencil
+ Sewing needle
CHAPTER ONE - CHOOSE YOUR DRAGON
1. I knew I needed to find inspiration on the silhouette for the dragon and it took a while to find one that wasn't too scary and wasn't too cartoonish. I finally found an image on Google that was perfect and then I free-hand sketched it out and the back of the silver glitter paper. After I cut it out, I traced it on the back of the same paper but reversed. You should have one dragon facing right, and the other facing left. TIP: Make sure to create/find a 2D silhouette with the wing completely flat!
2. Once I had my 2 dragons, I traced out 2 wings also in reversed. This is to make sure all sides of the dragon is glittery and the backside of the paper isn't shown at all! I made sure to leave extra on the the base of the wing to give me more material to work with when putting all the pieces together.
3. When both dragons and wings were cut out, I proceeded to put it all together! I used the double-sided tape to carefully adhere the 2 sides of the dragon's body together - NOT THE WINGS! I used scissors to clean up the bits that didn't fully match on the edges. I then folded the wings down outwardly to make it look as if the dragon were flying.
4. For the separate wings, I matched them on the inside and taped them together. The extended base of the separate wings helped with shimming it down between the 2 dragon bodies which made it more secure.
CHAPTER TWO - THE MOON
For the moon, I did the exact same process as the dragon! I used a circular object to trace the outside and the inside of a crescent moon shape. Then I cut it out and traced it in reverse, then used the doubled-sided tape to adhere it together (but more on that in the next chapter).
CHAPTER THREE - HANGING THE MOBILE
This is definitely the most tricky part of this whole process! But I'll attach a visual step-by-step to make it easier to follow:
CHAPTER FOUR - CREATING CLOUDS
I've learned how to felt in college when I attended a textiles program, but here's a video on needle felting for beginners!:
Here is how mine turned out:
CHAPTER FIVE - STARS
Last, but not least, stars! I very carefully used a glue gun and glued the confetti stars on the exposed fishing wire at random. However, I advise using clear glue with a much easier application. I just did my best with what I had!
THE END
And it's complete! A whimsical and magical dragon mobile for the nursery!