Day and Night Mobile

By: Helen Bradley for AMACO

This sweet mobile from AMACO will hang in pride of place in any nursery or child's room. It is made using FIMO® Soft clays and the Professional Bead Roller Set #6 which creates large perfect oval focal beads. The bead caps are small flower shapes cut using AMACO® PolyCutters Set #3. The mobile hangs from a recycled CD which is painted in pastel shades to match the beads. This project is not only fun to make but it is also a way of learning more about color as it uses a base color for the topmost beads and successively lighter tints of that color for the other beads.

Find this and other Rainbow Crafts at "14 Simple DIY Rainbow Crafts for Springtime"!

Materials:

FIMO® Soft Polymer Clay - one 2 oz. package each: Cherry Red, Pacific Blue, Nightglow, Mandarin, Tropical Green, Plum, Lemon and two 2 oz. packages of White
Two 18" lengths of soft ribbon
Crimp beads
Tiger Tail beading wire (approximately 2 yards)
Discarded CD
AMACO® Professional Bead roller #6
AMACO® Tri-Bead Roller
AMACO® Poly Cutters Set #3 flowers
AMACO® Designer Push Molds - Moon and Sun
AMACO® Bead Baking Rack
Pliers
Perm enamel paints or similar and small brush
Small hand drill
Pasta machine or clay roller
Tissue blade

Steps:

To make the beads, condition each of the colored clays and the white and nightglow clays. Following the instructions in the bead roller packet, press the clay into the top section of the two-piece bead roller, trim to level and press the ruler into the clay to mark it. Measure and set aside the required clay (5/8 inch), for one bead in each of the six colors (red, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange). Also measure out the clay required to roll one small round bead of each color using the Tri-bead roller.
For the second tier of beads, cut half the required clay from the solid color and the other half from the white clay except for the yellow bead where you will need 1/3 yellow and 2/3 white to achieve the desired tint. For the third tier of beads measure and cut 1/6 of the clay allowance in the colored clay and 5/6 in white - do this for the red, blue, green and orange beads. Roll all the beads in the bead roller - you should have 6 small round beads and 16 large focal beads. Push a pin through the centers of each bead lengthwise and place the pins on the bead rack and bake according to instructions on clay wrapper.
For the purple and yellow third tier bead you will be molding a sun or moon shape. Of the amount of clay that you need to mold the shapes you will need 15/16ths of it to be nightglow clay and add to this approximately a 1/16 amount of purple or yellow clay so the nightglow is only barely tinted with color. Mold the sun shape using the yellow tinted nightglow clay and the moon shape using the purple tinted nightglow clay. Pierce each shape lengthwise with a pin from the bead roller kit and bake according to instructions on clay wrapper.
While the beads are curing, roll a thin sheet of white clay using setting #5 on your pasta machine or approximately 1/16 of an inch thick. Using the small metal flower shape cutter, press out 32 flower shapes from the clay. When the beads have been removed from the oven and when they are cool, press a flower shape onto either end of the large oval beads to make a bead cap. Insert the pins back through the beads, place the capped beads back on the bead rack and bake again.
While the beads are curing the second time, paint the underside of a CD with enamel paints to cover up any label on the CD. Pastel enamel paints in the colors of the rainbow were used in this project. Drill six holes around the top of the CD equally spaced and then drill another set of four holes in from these that will be used to hang the CD. One simple way to mark these measurements is to make a template from the CD on a sheet of paper, cut it out and fold it in half and quarters and in sixths. Use the fold marks as a guide to marking the points to drill holes in the CD.
To assemble one bead string: take a 12 inch length of tiger tail, thread one end of the tiger tail through a crimp bead and then back through it again to make a very small loop and crimp with pliers. Add the lightest color bead. Approximately one inch above that bead, add another crimp bead and crimp with pliers. Add the bead that is slightly darker and one inch above that bead add another crimp bead. Crimp it with pliers and add the final large (darkest) bead. Push the end of the tiger tail through the CD, add the small full color bead and finish with a small loop and a crimp bead to hold in place. Trim excess tiger tail if needed. Repeat this process for each of the other strands taking care to use the yellow and purple molded shapes in place of the lightest beads on those strands. Ensure that the strands are threaded through the CD in the correct color order so that they run red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple around the CD and that the beads hang at the same length on each string.
Using the four holes you drilled in the CD, thread one length of ribbon through two opposite holes and tie a knot in each end on the underside of the CD. Repeat for the second length of ribbon and, before you tie the final knot, make sure the ribbons are the same length so the CD hangs level.