Making a mobile is relatively simple. All that you need are a few basic materials and your imagination. In every case you will need some sort of hanger or base that your mobile will be connected to, you will also need some sort of material you can use to connect each individual mobile component to the base. In addition to these two materials, it would help to have at least a basic knowledge of balance and counterweight principles. That is not to say that you need to be a physicist to make a mobile, it simply means that you need to understand the effects of balance and weight on an object. In the case of making a mobile you will find that if you add materials to one side of the mobile that do not balance out the weight on the other side of the mobile, your mobile will lean towards the heaviest side. With some trial and error these imbalances can be easily corrected.
Hanging mobiles can be as simple or as complex as you would like. Perhaps the simplest of all hanging mobiles involves hanging various materials from string and then trying that string to a hanger. You can make your mobile decorations out of paper, fabric, stuffed animals, pieces of glass, candy wrappers, or whatever else suits you. The thinner and more transparent the string or thread you use to connect your hanging decorations to the base of the mobile, the more modern the look will be. Using a material like fishing wire, will give the visual effect that your mobile decorations are flying in thin air. Some artists who make large and small scale mobiles for a living, like to use transparent string to give their art a more ethereal effect. For others having a transparent string adds to the theme of the piece itself. For example, if you are making a bird mobile, adding transparent string will help to make the piece look less like a mobile and more like a flock of birds.
While a hanger is a very convenient base to use when making a mobile, a hanger isn’t always the most attractive arts and crafts material there is. You can use your imagination and come up with all kinds of materials that would work great as a base for your mobile. For example, you can make a large mobile by hanging your mobile decorations from a hula hoop. You could make a very small mobile by hanging your mobile from the hook of a suction cup. As long as you can find a way to attach the different mobile components to it, a mobile base can be just about anything. Just know that in most cases the base of the mobile will be noticed, so it is important to put some thought into what you use and how it looks as a part of a whole piece. It would not make much sense to have an ultra modern piece of mobile art hanging from a white plastic hanger.
The possibilities are endless when it comes to what you can hang from your mobile. You can keep your design very simple by cutting out pictures that you find on cards or by making your own two-dimensional image and then simple taping the string to it or by using a whole punch to make a hole and then tie the string through the hole. You can use things that you already have around the house to make a mobile. For example, you can use small stuffed toys, finger puppets, blocks, or just about anything else that you can attach string too and make a mobile all your own.