This time last year, we were just six weeks away from meeting Emma.
And I was feeling very large,
very excited,
and kind of nervous about the whole giving birth naturally thing.
And, chances are, this time last year I had to go to the bathroom, because that's where I spent the majority of my time. Emma was getting heavy.
But back to the point of this post, because I'm sure you'll hear more about my nostalgia as Emma's birthday nears!
This post is for Tyler's aunt, who at Thanksgiving said to me, "You said you'd post about how you made the butterfly chandelier in Emma's nursery but you never did!" So, a million months later (sorry), here it is :)
As a refresher, this is Emma's nursery. The chandelier hangs above her crib as an alternative to a mobile.
I started by punching lots and lots of butterflies (400 or so) out of cardstock. Honestly, this was probably the hardest part of the entire project.
Then, I cut different lengths of cream colored string (36 strings total), keeping in mind how tall I wanted the chandelier to be. I tied a little knot near the bottom of each string, and then with the help of a needle, lowered a butterfly followed by a pearl bead (to weight the butterfly) onto the knot. I worked my way up the strings, adding more knots, butterflies, and pearls, and left a little room at the top to tie them to the chandelier structure. I probably put 10 to 12 butterflies on each string.
I made the chandelier structure from the largest embroidery ring at our local craft store. I removed the chunky piece from the outside of the ring because it was a bit of an eyesore.
Then, I cut strips of balsa wood and glued them to the ring.
You want the finished product to look like an 8-slice pizza look-alike. I painted the structure cream to match Emma's room.
Finally, I tied each string of butterflies to the chandelier structure in a way that looked pretty.
Easy project? Totally.
You could vary the chandelier by using stars, hearts, letters of the alphabet, flowers, shapes, animals, airplanes, etc. And, I can attest to the fact that babies (our baby, anyway) think they are really fun to look at.
