Floating polka dots…

I’m so excited to share this project! Not only does it help to fulfill two of my resolutions (use what I have and make my home homey) but it’s so fun and whimsical and ads a great splash of color to my room. I’ve been calling it a mobile but I suppose it’s more of a cross between a mobile and a garland. In any case, I started with some paint chips in shades of orange, aqua-ish blue and gray- colors I’ve been obsessed with lately. I love paint chips and I’ve got a nice little stock pile so it was great to pull a good chunk of them out into the light of day. I started cutting circles (1) and two evenings later I had 11 stacks of roughly similarly sized circles (2). I took an old mobile “frame” that I made a while back out of barbeque skewer sticks and strung long strands of very light-weight fishing string from the frame. Then I started with the circles and some Aileen’s tacky glue (a must-have for any crafter) and glued them together back-to-back, sandwiching a section of the string in between them. I just placed each color sporadically on the different strings, stepping back every once in a while and spinning the mobile to see where there might be gaps. Then a gathered all the circles on each string into a stack (3), wrapped them in paper (I used pages torn from a phone book. Who uses those, anyways? haha), and used a paper clip to secure the little bundles (4). I left them bundled overnight to allow the circle-sandwiches to dry without warping or pulling apart (5). The next day I unwrapped the bundles and hung the finished product in a corner of my room. The finished product (6) is about 4 feet long and, so far, has managed to escape demolition via kitty. haha I love how the polka dots float in the air and when the light hits it, there are polka dot shadows on the wall. So fantastic.

On a side note, I love the names of the paint colors… I mean, I’d be 1,000 times more likely to paint my house “Streams of Sunlight” and “Cool Sausalito” over light yellow and pale blue. haha Brilliant marketing strategy there.