Most mobiles that I’ve seen have been lame. They look like pieces of trash as they hang somewhere, and I can’t wait to take them down and throw them away. So when my husband was in charge of a Tiger Cub Scout group, one of the activities in the book was to make an autumn mobile. I thought I would invent one that looked rustic, like you had just gone on a nature walk. Plus, the kids learned how to do lashings and to tie things together.
Start with two sticks that you find on a nature walk. Put the sticks into a perpendicular “X” shape, and lash the sticks together. (Basically, alternate winding the string around one, and then the other one, to firmly hold the two sticks in place.) Make a loop on the top to hang it up. Then poke a hole in some real autumn leaves that aren’t too dry, or use fake leaves like I did. I poked the hole with a nail, which I pounded with a hammer, but you have to have something underneath that you don’t mind getting holes in. Tie the string to the leaf, then tie it to the stick. You can also add any other nature stuff by poking holes and having the stuff hang wherever you want, as long as the mobile is balanced, weight-wise. Then you’re done.
For the Cub Scout book, the boys needed to draw something that represented each member in their family. So, for example, my son sketched a computer for Dad, a flower for Mom, a butterfly for his sister, an airplane for his younger brother, and a person drawing for his older brother. This way the mobile represented our family. The boy had to think about each member of his family, and what characteristics each person had, or what likes and dislikes. We stuck the pencil sketches (drawn on yellow paper to blend into the autumn leaves) to each leaf with some sticky tack, but you could use glue. It came out quite well, and I kept it up all autumn.
