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"I do believe in an everyday sort of magic...the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone." Charles de Lint

Monday, September 14, 2015

Paper Mobiles

I recently got an e-mail from Wayne, a good friend from Maine that made my day.  I used to babysit for his daughter Addie...we had the best time together. At some point during her growing up I made her a paper mobile for her room. Wayne wanted to let me know that Addie went off to college this fall and the only decoration she took for her dorm room was her paper mobile. I was touched...and honored.                                                                                                                  
It all started with the one on the right that I bought at a gift store...somewhere...a long time ago. It's made from strips of colored velum and it lives in my craft room....I just love it!

When I first got started I didn't have access to colorful velum...but I did have an abundance of wonderful card stock that came in a nice gradation of colors.  So I started with that...making them by the dozen in the rainbow spectrum and other combinations such as sea glass colors and just black and white for a baby's room.  I sold them at Folly 101 and I gave them to friends and family. I made a whole bunch of them in whites one year for the Folly 101 Christmas window...I wish I had a picture.

A few years ago I was asked to help out with decorations for a baby shower for Paul's colleague Dana and her husband Sean.  I kept it simple...making a series of mobiles in soft colors that I hung from a dowel suspended from the ceiling over the food table.
Recently Paul and I visited Dana and Sean in their new home and those mobiles from the shower are now hanging in her son, Leighton's room.


I finally stumbled on colored velum at Hobby Lobby in Madison and a few other places since...so I shifted to velum.  I cut my strips using a slide cutter and sort them in paper cups that I have glued into a box top.



I have several of these cutters and use them for so many things.  


I feed the strips into my sewing machine one by one with a little space in between.  That's it....pretty easy!  I leave a long piece of lead thread at the start....for hanging and I often put a bead and the top and the bottom.  


The one I made today is quite long and was hard to photograph.  It was fun getting these colorful little strips back out....I may have to make some more.                                                                                                         



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