How many times have I said it now? I. Love. Mobiles. And not just your standard nursery mobile. I love mobiles all over the house; adult mobiles, if you will {but not that adult}. I just like pretties of all kinds and if they hang from the ceiling than all the better. I think it’s the Danish in me. My grandmother had dozens of paper mobiles from Denmark, which I now have hanging in my own home.

So, of course when it came time to decorate our nursery, I had plenty of mobiles in mind. When my friend, Jenn, had her little girl last year, I made this sweet Paper Flower Chandelier {inspired by, or more accurately copied from a Pottery Barn piece I’d seen} and I had the same idea for one using owls in our nursery. My mother saved the mobile from when I was a baby, so I was planning to reuse that as a decoration in the room as well. A few pomander kissing balls and an existing paper star chandelier would help to complete the room, but I still felt like something was missing. I needed one more baby-distracting element.

Which is how I came up with this origami star mobile. Here’s where I landed. It was time-consuming to make, but crazy cheap and I LOVE, Love, love how it turned out.

Here’s how it all went down. I originally had the idea of making a wishing tree/baby keepsake using 3D Origami Stars. Because they use a long sheet of paper, I thought it would be easy to have people write a wish for the babies and then I’d fold them into stars and place them in a jar for the girls to read when they got older. But, once I started making them, I saw the perfect mobile. The stars can be a little tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, they move pretty quickly. I made mine using white sketch paper, but they would be cute with magazine, newspaper and scrapbooking paper as well.

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1. Cut your sheet of paper in half lengthwise, then repeat this process with each “half” until you have 3/4″ to 1″ wide strips of paper.
2. Take a single strip of paper and tie a loose knot into the top, so that you have a short tail hanging down and a little nub pointing up. Gently press down on your knot.
3. Fold the small nub back so that it lies across the back of your knot.
4. Fold the long tail over the opposite side, so that it lies across the front of your knot.
5. Continue to fold the long tail over the knot, following the outside line of your pentagon.
6. When your reach the end of your tail, simply tuck it into the existing fold on your pentagon.
7. Using your forefinger and thumb, gently press the sides of your pentagon until is “inflates”. You should see your 3D star emerge.

Once I had all my stars made – I used about 100 3D origami stars for this project – I grabbed some blue thread for the starts to hang from. Each piece of thread holds about 10-12 stars and I used 8 pieces of thread. I tied each piece of thread to a 6-inch metal craft ring.

 

For the top of the mobile, I decided to use the yellow pom poms I’d saved from my baby shower decorations. I attached two of them together and then tied the star mobile to the bottom. It’s a bit of an anomaly; yellow clouds and nighttime stars, but that’s the beauty of DIY crafting.