Hot Air Balloon Mobile

This post has been shared on That DIY Party on the DIY Showoff Blog

Happy Saturday!  How is that for a teaser photo for you.  I am so excited about today's post because this next project for the nursery is one of my favorite nursery projects so far.  Since the nursery has a little bit of a vintage travel thing going on I wanted the mobile feature above the crib to involve hot air balloons.  After perusing Pinterest for ideas I came up with the great idea to use paper lanterns to make the hot air balloons.

Paper Lantern Hot Air Balloon Supplies

Paper lanterns in various sizes (I believe the sizes that I used were 4" and 6" lanterns which I found at www.paperlanternstore.com)
Baker's twine
Wilton Party Cups-standard and mini sizes
A yarn needle
Gold craft paint
Measuring tape
Scissors
Hot glue gun and glue
Burlap fabric
Washi tape
Quilter's batting
Paper clips
Thumb tacks

I started out by adding stripes and polka dots with gold paint to the white lanterns.

Next I cut two pieces of baker's twine about 4 feet long per piece for each lantern.  I tied a knot in the center of the two twine pieces and then pushed the metal hook on the lantern through the knot.

I then knotted two pieces of twine together so that the twine went down 4 sides of the lantern.

Next I pulled one string from each group and tied it to another string from an adjacent group.

I continued to repeat the last step until I had formed a sort of net of twine over the lantern.

Next I threaded the yarn needle with the two pieces of twine.

I then poked the needle through the paper party cup. I repeated that step with the other three groups of twine and then made sure that the basket was balanced and tied a knot in each twine group to keep them from coming out of the party cup.

My next step was to make the little strings of flags that I tied around the lanterns.  I used another piece of baker's twine and washi tape to create the flags.

I started by wrapping pieces of washi tape at equal intervals over the twine.

Next I trimmed off the ends to make sure they were all the same length and then I cut into the flags to remove a little triangle piece from the bottom of each flag.

Finally, I tied the flag piece around the lantern at a little bit of an angle and cut off the excess twine.

I forgot to take pictures of the next step but to complete the baskets I cut strips of burlap and hot glued them onto the party cups.  I then decided to add a piece of washi tape that matched the flags around the top of each basket.

I attached the completed hot air balloons to the ceiling with more pieces of baker's twine and clear thumb tacks.  I thought about using fishing wire for a more invisible look but I kind of liked the look of the visible strings.

I could of just stopped there because the hot air balloons were so cute on their own but I decided that I wanted to make it even cuter by adding clouds.  I made the clouds with quilter's batting.  I pulled the batting out to make it wispy and then I hot glued it until I got the desired cloud shape.  I hung them by pushing a paper clip through the batting and tying a piece of baker's twine to the paper clip.

So without further ado here are the pictures of my completed mobile.

I am seriously in love with this mobile!  I think it is the perfect addition to our little one's nursery.  I hope to have at least one more post before April is done as I have many nursery projects in the works (as well as some sewing projects for baby). I am also working on some fun gifts that I will write posts on sometime in May or early June so there is a lot more to look forward to.  Keep checking back for more updates on my little home blog!