Wiffle Ball Rosette Mobile

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My sister-in-law has a little girl due at the end of April, and I have been wanting to make something for the baby. I know what you're all thinking, but I was trying to think of something that didn't involve any sewing. When my mother-in-law mentioned that she hadn't been able to find a mobile that worked with her crib, the wheels started spinning and I thought of these rosette balls. So I took a peek at my craft stash, and headed out to Dollar Tree. They didn't have any styrofoam balls, but they did have wiffle balls, which I thought would do just perfectly. I also grabbed some white crepe paper, and a dream catcher because I knew I'd need some sort of hoop, and you can't beat one for $1!

I trimmed all of the ornaments off of the dream catcher and re-wrapped it in white ribbon.

I then took one of my wiffle balls, looped some ribbon through 2 holes and tied it up, with a little hot glue under my knot to keep it secure. (I don't want my niece to get knocked on the head by a rose-covered wiffle ball while she’s trying to sleep!) I knew that a little bit of the ball would be visible between the roses, so I wrapped the balls in crepe paper first, by taking 3 short strips, wrapping each one around the ball, and hot gluing the ends of the paper down. It didn't lie completely smoothly, but it was a good foundation to stick the roses onto and covered up the wiffle ball evidence.

House of Smiths gives a great illustration on how to make these roses, and was the inspiration for this idea. But basically, you make a base for the rose with a little line of hot glue on the end of a strip of crepe paper (mine were about 14 inches long). Fold the paper over the line of glue, and from there, you simply roll the base of the rose, while twisting the excess crepe paper. I varied wrapping the paper tightly and sometimes wrapping it a bit more loosely to give the rose a nice blossoming look, and stopped periodically to add a drop of glue to keep the rose from unraveling. This may seems a little confusing, but it is super easy and after a little fumbling, you can fly through making them. (You will get hot glue gun strands everywhere though, as you can see in these pictures.)

I trimmed the stem off the bottom of the roses, and then glued them onto the balls, starting with 3 around the ribbon strand, and then worked down from there.

The nursery is painted a lime green color with this Geo Girl bedding from Target, so I wanted to use crepe paper colors that coordinated with the bedding: light pink, dark pink, blue, purple and white. I couldn't find any purple crepe paper at Wal-Mart, so I just got purple tissue paper and used that instead. The end result is similar, but it is certainly more slippery to work with. I just lined the tissue paper up on my cutting board, cut the width into 1 1/4 inch strips, and started rolling and gluing.

Once my roses were glued down to the balls, I noticed that the center of the blooms was really prominent and the balls almost looked like they had little points all over them. So I got some sharp scissors and snipped off the center of those blooms. It gave the flowers a nice little ruffled effect in the middle, so I ended up doing this with each of the roses on all of the balls. It made for a flatter, more rounded surface on the balls as well.

I ended up with 4 rose wiffle balls, and covered 1 four-inch styrofoam ball with white roses, so that she would have a few options as to which balls to pair with the crib.

I can't wait to see it hanging in our niece's little nursery!!

I'm linking this mobile to the CSI Project here, so check it out!

Also these rosette balls are available in my etsy shop here, with the colors customized to your preferences.