Up, up and away! DIY: Hot air balloon nursery mobile.

Take your little one on a journey through the clouds with this delightful hot air balloon mobile.

You’ll need:

The pattern

A variety of coloured felt

Embroidery needle and embroidery floss

Scissors

Invisible thread (fishing line will also do)

Embroidery hoop

Polyester fiberfill or similar type of stuffing

Old wine corks

Instructions:

1. Decide on a design for you balloon – are you going to have bunting or multi-coloured panels? This is an important step as it will affect how you’ll go about creating your balloon.
2. We’re going to focus on making the blue and yellow hot air balloon (this method can be adapted to make other versions of the balloon). Using the pattern as your template, cut eight balloon body pieces or panels out of a single piece of felt. The arrow and triangle shapes for this design were cut free hand from felt of another colour and arranged, with right side facing up, on the balloon body where they were pinned and then stitched in place.
                            
                            
3. Using a normal needle and thread hand stitch the balloon panels together. There are two important things to note with this step: firstly, make sure that the wrong side of the balloon body is facing outwards when sewing so that, when finished, the stitches will be hidden from view. Secondly, leave one panel only half sewn – this will make it easier to turn the balloon inside out. 
4. Turn the balloon inside out and finish sewing the final panel in place. 
5. Stuff your balloon.
6. Pin and sew the bottom piece into place. 
                           
7. Attach the cork to the balloons using a needle and thread. If the proportions seem a bit off, try cutting the cork in half before attaching it to the balloon. You can also remove any markings or labels on the corks by giving them a light sanding. 
8. Finally, attach your balloons to the embroidery hoop using some invisible thread or fishing line.

This is just one of two ways you can use to make your balloons. For the other visit the tutorial’s creator Joy Kelley on her blog how Joyful.

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