When I was pregnant, Nate and I used to talk about getting the little one a Calder Mobile."Most mobiles are so corny", we'd say with conviction. "Why would I want my baby to stare a stuffed animals?"
I was sure that if there ever was a neighborhood pretentious enough to offer modern art inspired baby gear, we were there. But much to my surprise, there is no such thing as a Calder baby mobile. Seriously? Sure, there are very expensive mobiles (hand crafted by Calder himself, I presume), but nothing that could be attached to the crib the way a child's toy would.
We decided that the easiest solution would be to make it ourselves. It's not that we are crafty per se, its that we are two designers and eventually the ideas in our head don't exist in the real world. So we have to make them. Ah, life would be so different right now if we had a garage to set up a workshop. I have a feeling Nate would spend his weekends making furniture. Maybe we'd never go to Ikea again? *shudder* What a scary thought.
I have to admit that the mobile we made is not what we originally intended. We had sketched up and discussed how to make the whole thing: frame, wires, wind up mechanism. But ultimately we didn't get it done before LP was born, and now that she's here, we don't have time to d!ck around like we used to. We've taken a few shortcuts. Also, the resulting mobile is NOT baby proof, which means that it needs to be hung from the ceiling (not her crib) and be out of reach even when she learns to stand.
So here it is, how to make your very own Calder mobile. :
Materials:
Wire photo mobile - such as this Kikkerland mobile
Foam in primary colors
Scissors
We ended up finding some door tags at Hobby Lobby that fit the size, color and material. Sure, they are religious (and I can't figure out what their actual use is), but it doesn't matter, because we were going to to cut them anyway. Main thing: they are soft foam.
The shapes are very important, as they dictate whether your mobile will look Calderesque, or simply a bunch of colored pieces of foam
We threw out the left overs, though they looked pretty cool.
Attach the pieces to the existing wire frame
And voila, you have a mobile ready to hang from the ceiling!
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