Solar System Mobile

<div align="center"><a href="http://tamingthegoblin.com" title="Taming the Goblin"><img src="http://rainydaymum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/World_Space_Week_2012.png" alt="Taming the Goblin" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Its World Space week and I have joined a Space blog hop. If you have space based posts please link them below. I'm linking up my latest craft project:

My friends are breeding and as a result we are having many baby showers.  I made my last pregnant friend a Gobbi Mobile so with a new baby shower looming I set to work. I decided to be slightly more adventurous this time having (or so I thought) mastered the art of making felt balls. I decided to make a Solar System mobile. So with my trusts Ladybird Mini - Mad About Space book as a reference I set about making a stack of little planets. 

This was as much a stash busting exercise as it was a philanthropic gesture to a dear chum, so rather than just make one set, I decided to make two. 

It didn't take me long to realise that larger balls are significantly harder to make with any degree of success than small ones. In fact I wasn't great at the small ones either. I have since discovered Curly Birds handy tutorial, which had I read before embarking on this project would have saved me some time needle felting the lumps of wool into decent spheres post wet felting. Any how despite my best efforts to the contrary I seemed to manage successfully to make 18 planets.

Saturn and Uranus required rings for which I used thick jewellery wire. I heated up a poker and plunged it into the depth of the relevant planets. The in poked the wire ends into the hole and sealed them in with my glue gun. There are probably daintier ways to do it but it did the job.

Finally I sewed embroidery thread through each planet and strung them in order around the inner circle of an 8" Cross Stitch Embroidery Hoop  (the wooden ones are very cheap - unless you are my preggy friend in which case I spent a fortune, honest!).

I was super excited when I gave the mobile to my friend and as soon as she took it out of the box she recognised it as a solar system. I kept the other one for Goblin.

This blog hop has been brought to you by the letters S - P - A - C - E and the following blogs:

Rainy Day Mum, Nurturestore, Toddler Approved, Here Comes the Girls, 3 Dinosaurs, Mummy Mummy Mum, Science Sparks, Living Montessori Now, One Perfect Day, K C Edventures, Taming the Goblin

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