Custom Baby Mobile: Bruno's Fun Time Adventures

A few months ago I had a VERY enthusiastic mom-to-be contact me through my Etsy Shop and request a custom mobile for her baby's room featuring the much beloved and first baby of the house Bruno the French Bulldog!  The inspiration for this mobile came from the mobile The (Mis)-Adventures of Pheobe and Paige I made at the beginning of the year, but I was sure to incorporate some of the beloved activities of Bruno's parents.

Look at that face!! What a handsome little French Bulldog. His face just is too precious. 

 

 

As I often do, I started this mobile with some common interests this family has. People after my own heart, they love to go camping, and Bruno loves to come along for the fun!  The camping Bruno is ready to go with his trusty headlamp and a roasting stick and marshmallows. (Can you imagine if he actually wore a headlamp? OMG so much cuteness!!) 

 

The next figure needs little explanation. Bruno is obviously super, and thus Super Bruno had to be made. It's difficult to see from the angle of the photo here, but he's got a trusty B on the back of the cape. I like to think he's keeping a helpful eye over baby. 

Bruno's mom loves the story of Alice in Wonderland, so this next piece was inspired by the rabbit from the Alice in Wonderland cartoon. I really love how this one came out. The ruffle was done with my sewing machine and it gives it just the right amount of authentic detail. 

If you've never seen the film Up, what are you doing with your life? It's such a sweet and sentimental film and it's also fun to play with ideas from it. Since the film Up (so cute) is also a family favorite so I was sure to include Bruno having his own Up-inspired adventures. 

Lastly, Bruno's dad is a fierce drummer in his spare time, so in order to make sure dad had his own inspired figure, I came up with this Bruno drumming figure. It's complete with a sweet little heart shaped tattoo (tattoos are also a hobby of Bruno's dad so it was another simple nod to him). 

My little extra figures are always included and Bruno's dad has a love of stars so they were also tied in here. Plus they went perfectly with a number of the figures so it was a no-brainer addition. 

 

Here you can see the figures all together. 

Here is the finished piece. I've heard from Bruno's mom that they'll pass along some photos when the mobile is hung up, which I always look forward to. 

I love the opportunity to create sentimental nursery pieces for families. I hope they're treasured even after baby leaves the crib.  If you have an idea for a custom mobile, I'd love to hear it!! You can contact me through my Etsy shop Lavender Paper Hearts. 

Custom Mobile: For Baby Charlotte

My latest mobile was made for my husband's cousin Emily, who was expecting her second baby, and first baby girl!! Babies are delightful in any gender, but it's fun to have a new girl in the family!!  Emily came up with a really beautiful nursery design and in talking about her vision for the new baby's room. She gave me some of the fabrics used in the room, we talked a bit about a nature theme, and the mobile frame that was used in her son's nursery.   

It's fun to have design freedom, and I spent a lot of time thinking about what would be fun to create for new baby Charlotte.  I came up with what I've been calling a Simple and Sweet design.  Each figure is a bit more simple than the last mobiles I've been designing recently, but I really don't believe that things always need to be complicated to make a bold and beautiful statement.  The colors in the mobile compliment the colors in baby's room, as well as the fabrics I was given to refashion the mobile top.  If anything, I think this mobile also speaks to my love of the spring time as much as it does my needing the winter to be over already. 

Here are the figures I came up with. 

I call it an abstract butterfly, because I didn't do a traditional looking back on the wings of the butterfly. 

I thought this was a fun twist. 

Here are the figures altogether. I think that the mix of flowers, butterfly, and cute cuddly animals all came together nicely. 

Below you can see the finished mobile. The mobile originally had a brown and blue theme and brown and blue fabric on the top part. I took it apart and refashioned it using fabric found in baby Charlotte's nursery. It took a bit of fiddling, because I wasn't happy with how it came out the first time (somehow I measured the flaps wrong and they were longer than I wanted), but I think the finished product is fun and incorporates both the fabrics, and the room colors nicely. 

                  

I made several more gifts for Charlotte including these polka dot felt booties. I saw this fabric at the store and snatched it up IMMEDIATELY. It's so cute, and bright, and fun!! 

We're looking forward to meeting baby Charlotte this weekend!! 

xoxo

To inquire about custom mobiles send me a message at my Etsy shop Lavender Paper Hearts. 

Custom Mobile: Palm Beach Prep

Oh goodness, there is more cuteness in store for you today. I was contacted to make a mobile to match the Palm Beach Prep theme she had going for her new baby's room, and after a few back and forth emails to figure out exactly the details she was looking for, I have to say, I love the way this mobile turned out. This mobile included their two dogs in the fun. Both dogs are Boston Terriers with really amazing coats and markings so it was a fun challenge to mix up the standard Boston's I've been working on in several of my previous designs. 

Check out these cuties. Aren't they beautiful!!  The pup on the left is a brindle, which means she looks just like a regular Boston Terrier, except her coat is kicked up a few notches. Brindles are generally predominantly brown with these amazing soft black sort of stripes that wisp throughout their coat.  The second pup has amazing coloring on the face and a blue AND brown eye!! Talk about some amazingly beautiful and different looking dogs!! 

Here are the pups as felt figures! I was having a hard time with lighting the day I took these so it's a bit dark, but I promise it's brown! :) 

The next piece in the theme were all about Florida and beach fun. I came up with this striped surf board (complete with back rudder which is why it photographs on its side). The colors compliment the raspberry pink and bright greens being used in the baby's room. 

I am in love with this cute little flamingo. She was really fun to make!

A palm tree was one of the other figures that we worked out, as beaches and palm trees are tied together if we're talking about Florida, so I put the little palm tree on an island and added a little crab. 

Here's a close up shot of the crab! I didn't know at the time, but it turns out that that my customer is originally from Maryland, so the crab was a meant-to-be perfect extra touch!! If I'd known, I would have made it blue, but the fascia works well in the baby's room. 

This photo shows you just how tiny the details are on the crab. I thank the trusty "my husband was questioning whether they were wroth $25 or not, but bought them anyway for me for Christmas," scissors! Oh, and a good pair of tweezers, and a lack of sleep/sanity. Those helped too. 

Here are the detailed extras I added to give the mobile some depth. We decided that a sun, a bird silhouette (they always remind me of the beach), and a starfish would be fun extras. As an extra-extra, I also added some clouds to the ring of the mobile (see photo below this one), and it really tied the beach theme together for me. 

Here are all the figures just before being hung on the mobile!

How awesome is this Gif? Somehow my Google Back up turned my photos into this fun thing. I just wish the lighting was better when I took the photos (I edit them later) so it was a bit brighter. 

Lastly, I have new ring styles available for the shop. I've made my last two designs using these flat rings and think that they come out super cute. The nice thing about these rings is that they can be wrapped in yarn OR painted to the color of your choice!!

Overall, this was another really fun piece to make. I love the creative challenge and also the excitement that these mobiles bring to me. The mobile was well received, and I hope to share photos of it hanging in baby's room.

Be sure to check out my other mobiles in my Etsy shop: Lavender Paper Hearts!!  If you have an idea for a custom mobile, please contact me through my Etsy shop, Lavender Paper Hearts! I love working one on one with customers to make the perfect mobile for your nursery.

Check back early next week for a preview of my new Spring 2014 Pet Bow Tie Line. Impatient? You can check out my pet bow ties here.  

Custom Mobile: Little Bugs

I think one of my favorite things that I make in my shop Lavender Paper Hearts is baby mobiles. I love working with customers to come up with a design that ends up being exactly what they're looking for. Plus, my customers have AMAZING ideas that are often times things I never would have thought of.  Plus, working together to help make something that will help their baby's drift off to sleep is an extremely rewarding feeling.

Recently I had the pleasure of making a custom mobile for some dear friends of mine. When we started talking about what they were looking for for their baby's room, Jen and Jeff sent me some photos of concert posters they were having framed to use in Baby Bowie's room. The concert posters, as you can see below, were really cute retro-inspired brightly colored cartoons with bugs of all sorts. The bugs served as the jumping off point for the mobile. Jen and Jeff gave me a lot of flexibility to go in any buggy inspired direction I wanted. I tried my best to mimic at least a few of the bugs in the posters below as well as added a few bugs I thought would be a cute addition to the overall aesthetic of the final design.

I was also asked to incorporate the lightning bolt from David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album as a nod to Baby Bowie's in-utero nickname and now actual middle name! 

Here's what I came up with: 

I'm not gonna lie, I love how the wings turned out here. They added a nice extra layer of complexity to the mobile, and they were flying bugs, so, duh, they were necessary too!!

In addition to the rainbow featured above with the bee in the photo above, here are two other little extras I added to the mobile. I like to add what I call extras as a way to add further depth to the mobile. They give baby even more thing to dream about.  Below are the David Bowie lightning bolt and cloud.

I could not be more elated for Jen and Jeff. They will experience the true definition of overwhelming joy as they welcome little rainbow Lena Bowie in to the world, and I can't think of two people who deserve as much in this moment. I cannot wait to snuggle this little one in January when I head to California for baby-palooza.

XOXOXOXO

If you have an idea for a custom mobile, I'd love to hear it.  You can contact me through my shop Lavender Paper Hearts over on Etsy.  I have another custom mobile in my shop work queue that I can't wait to share with you once it's done in January. This one is puppy adventure inspired and is going to be so much fun!!

Custom Baby Mobile: Family Fun

In July I was commissioned to make a super-duper custom mobile for a special little baby.  Baby's aunt asked me to make a mobile that reflected mom and dad, and their three dogs!

The specifics: Auntie requested that baby's parents be dressed in jerseys from their favorite college football teams - Oklahoma University and Louisiana State University. I was told mom loves to wear black eye liner and fierce eye lashes so I was sure to do them up, and I was told that dad loves to rock a goatee and has bright blue eyes!

*I usually throw in a toothpick to give a sense of the mobile figure's size. 

Look at this teeny tiny jersey!

This gives you a sense of how I built their faces. It takes a lot of layering to get the features just right. 

Here is a photo of two of the puppies in progress. I worked hard to make them as three dimensional as possible.

Here are the photos of the dogs that my buyer sent me: 

 

Bear is a Newfoundland and is a big boy at 200 lbs. 

Drake, a Clumber Spaniel, is actually the smallest at 65 lbs. 

Nancy Reagan is a Great Pyrenees and weighs 130 lbs. 

I did my best to incorporate each puppies specific spots, coat textures, and other details.  

I ended up adding a shopping bag above mom since she loves to shop, and a football above dad.  Did you know footballs have 8 laces? Google told me.  

I included some of my homemade dog treats to the package for the dogs and shipped it off. It's being given to the new parents at their family baby debut party and I hope they love it!! 

You can check out my other baby mobiles in my shop: HERE. Do you have a custom mobile idea you'd like to see come to life? Contact me on Etsy at Lavender Paper Hearts or you can drop me an email at LavenderPaperHearts at gmail dot com.