Victorian Shabby Chic Valentine’s Day Mobile Tutorial

Alright, I know this post is going up on Valentine’s Eve, so I’m giving you pretty much no time to have any hope of duplicating this before Valentine’s Day. I am learning that I need to start holiday projects at least 2 years before the holiday in mind to have any hopes of having it done early enough in order to not embarrass myself. What’s scary is I’m not exaggerating all that much with that timeline.This project took me way longer than what I thought. Part of the problem was I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do until I started doing it. So there was a lot of time spent sitting at the table in my craft room, staring at the pile of craft stuff and asking myself “what do I need to do to make this project really rock?” I also spent a lot of time banging my head on said table. I am thankful that at least it turned out pretty sweet, and the extra effort to make it as such makes up for the late posting. Hopefully you will think so too! Are all these pretty pictures helping?This hummingbird seems to approve!

So here’s what you’ll need to do this:

• 2 wood clothes hangers with screw-in metal hooks
• Printouts of vintage Valentine’s Day cards (you can find links for free printables here)
• 2 feet of lace ribbon; 1/2 inch wide
• 2 feet string of small plastic pearls
• Pack of 16 assorted wood hearts; 1/8 inch thick
• 10 yard spools of nylon ribbon; one of each color: pink, red, white
• 25 small eye screws
• Elmer’s Glue
• Brush to apply glue
• Pencil
• Razor knife (imagine the scissors is a razor knife in the picture)
• Needle threader
• A lot of assorted buttons in coordinating colors
• Don’t pay any attention to the gold string or the rose appliques in the picture. I thought I was going to use them, but I didn’t.

Directions:Unscrew one of the hooks from the wood part on one of the hangers. Measure hangers and mark 6 spots evenly across the bottom of each hanger, avoiding the center of the hanger. For example, my hangers measured 16 inches across, so I marked at 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, and 14 inches.Screw in eye screws at the positions marked in the bottom of the hangers.Screw the hanger hook you removed before in the “wrong” side of the hanger.Keep screwing the hook through the top of the hanger and into the bottom of the other hanger to form the mobile. Set aside.Screw in remaining eye hooks into the top of the wood hearts. Print out the vintage cards. I used cardstock and printed out 16 cards on 4 sheets.Place wood hearts onto the cardstock and trace the part of the cards you want on the hearts. Cut out the tracings using the razor knife. Glue cardstock onto both sides of the wood hearts. Trim off excess cardstock using the razor knife.Apply glue to the edges of the hearts using the brush.Press ribbon all away around the edges of the hearts and trim. This is a lot easier than it looks.Glue some buttons onto the hearts if desired. Glue some buttons onto the hangers if desired. Heck, glue on whatever you desire wherever you want it- it’s your project and it’s a free country.

I had three extra wood hearts, so I did them up as above, but only glued the cardstock on one side and glued them to the mobile.Use the needle threader to thread ribbon through one of the buttons.Thread one end of the ribbon through one of the eye screws in the hanger.Thread ribbon through another button and pull both buttons up snug on either side of the eye screw.Tie on a heart with the free ends of the ribbon and make a bow. Use a square knot or double tie the bow to keep it from slipping.

Repeat until you use all the hearts, varying the length of the ribbons as desired. Tie on the last heart to the inverted metal hanger hook in the middle of the mobile. Tie on plastic pearls, lace, and leftover ribbon to the wire hooks as desired.

Let me know what you think, if it was worth seeing in the 11th hour and whether you’ll make it next year since I didn’t give you enough time this year.

Have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Michelle