For kids, making mobile crafts is an easy way to incorporate dimension into your craft making. Instead of having them color another page in the coloring book, why not challenge them with an activity that is a little bit more exciting. Mobiles are perfect crafts for kids because even though they are easy to make, the end result can be very impressive. You can make a mobile out of just about anything! As long as you can tie a string to it and hang it from a base, it can be a mobile. Mobiles can be as simple as hanging your child’s favorite drawings from a piece of string that is tied to a hanger. If your young one is not yet old enough to draw recognizable figures, you can use cutouts of what your child is interested in. You can even use real toys to make a mobile. Tie small stuffed animals to the end of ribbon and make a cute mobile for the kid’s room. You can incorporate learning into your mobile craft by making a mobile of the planets or of the food chain. You could make a family mobile and hang a picture of each member of your family on the mobile. You can add more detail by separating each member of the family much like you would in a family tree. You could make your own plush creatures or shapes to hang from your mobile by taking two identical pieces of fabric, add stuffing to the center, and then sew the two pieces together. Use your imagination and your hanging mobile craft can turn into a fun opportunity to spend time with your kids.
If your kids are a little older and don’t show the same excitement for making mobiles as the younger children do, you can add to the challenge of making a mobile by introducing the concept of physics. By this I mean that you can teach lessons of balance, weight, and counterweight. If you are using a hanger as your mobile base, hang only one string down from the center. Then use other objects like sticks or pencils to form subsequent bases that more items are then tied on to. If the proper balance is not maintained, the mobile will simply droop to one side. But if you can combine different weights and experiment with a variety of different objects, you can come up with a very interesting work of art. After all, there a many artists that specialize in making custom mobiles.
When most people envision a mobile, they think of babies and cribs. While it has been made clear that not all mobiles have to be in nurseries, it is important to realize that some mobiles are definitely not appropriate for babies. You should put a good deal of thought into where you decide to display a mobile in a baby’s room. If you want to make a mobile for baby, be sure that you use materials that are not only safe for baby but that would not pose a choking hazard were your baby to get a hold of it. Be very careful about the materials that you use to attach toys to your mobile. Make sure that you are using more of a rope material that is kept very short, versus a string that is long enough to wrap around anything. Also be sure that you baby is not able to actually reach the mobile. You may be surprised at just how quickly your child will learn how to get to the toys that she wants so it would be unwise to underestimate what your baby is capable of.