Nursery Mobile DIY: How To Make An Alpine Cow Mobile

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When first deciding on an alpine theme for our gender surprise nursery (check out the inspiration and mood boards HERE!), I knew right away that I wanted to include a cow mobile! Now, it might sound strange, but if you have spent any time in, around or near the Alps, you know that you will pass through farms and pastures full of cows, hearing the joyful sounds of bells jingling around their necks. Hikes often meander in and through these pastures, both through the valleys and high up on mountain tops, painting a scene that looks as if from a movie. Similarly, many local towns have traditional seasonal festivals centered around moving the cows to and from these high pastures, all the while celebrating with local cheeses, milks and crowns of flowers draped around the animals’ necks and heads. Since living in Munich, Charlie and I have loved getting out to hike and enjoy this beautiful scenery, so adding an alpine cow mobile felt like the perfect touch for our gender surprise nursery. After doing a bit of research however, I discovered that most of the lovely cow crib mobiles were either more highland cow focused or beyond what I was hoping to spend. Seeing this, I thought it could be neat to create my own nursery mobile DIY and therefore wanted to share all the ways I discovered to make a felt alpine cow mobile. Let’s dive in!

Nursery Mobile DIY: Materials 

Knowing that my main colors would be yellow, green, white and the cows, instead of starting completely from scratch, I opted to borrow the base structure of my nursery mobile DIY from an existing mobile easily purchased. From here, you can disassemble the mobile and construct it once again with the pieces and parts that you create. 

• Nursery mobile base design – I used this one HERE
• Felt sheets – like THIS variety pack
• Scissors
• Needle and embroidery threads
• Cotton balls
• Mobile hanger 

Creating An Alpine Nursery Cow Mobile: Instructions

1 – The first step to creating your alpine nursery cow mobile is to create a template for each of your cows! For this, you can draw a template for each piece on a piece of paper to cut out as I did, OR feel free to download and cut out a template copy of my pieces to speed up the process. 

If you opt to draw your own, it is best to at least create a template for the: body, head, ears, nose, tail and bell to create some continuity between your animals. 

Want To Make Your Own DIY Nursery Mobile?

Click the button below for your copy of our FREE Alpine Crib Mobile Cow Template!

2 – Once your template is finished and cut out, trace an outline design of the body of your cow onto a piece of felt that is twice the size of your template. As this will become the main structure of your animal, selecting a color of felt that is brown, beige or gray will provide the best alpine cow appearance, however feel free to experiment with colors as you like. 

3 – After your design is traced, fold over the felt so that you have a double thickness of material.

4 – Using your scissors, cut out this body design. Due to the fabric being folded over, you should have two matching pieces.

5 – From here, you can decide if you would like your cow to have spots or just be one single color. If opting for a single color, skip ahead to the next step. 

If you would like your cow to have spots however, select another color of felt and cut out a few curvy, abstract shapes to act as the spots. There does not have to be any real rhyme or reason to the shapes, so long as they follow the exterior contours of the body template.  

6 – Next, repeat steps 2 through 4 for the cow’s head and ears. 

Following this you can also cut out the nose, tail and bell as well though you will not need to fold over / double up the fabric since you will just have one piece of each. 

7 – At this point, it is also good to decide what kind of accessories you would like your cow to have! Would you like your alpine cow to be decorated with flowers, fringe, horns or utters? If so, use your scraps or other felt sheets to cut out any additional pieces that might be included on your cow. 

8 – Once all of your pieces are cut out and ready to go, it is time to start putting the elements together! I found that it was best to add all the details to each piece before assembling the main structures together. To do this, use your embroidery thread in a similar color to the felt and needle (or fabric glue) to sew on the spots with small consistent stitches. 

9 – After the spots are adhered, be sure to attach the ears, nose, eyes or horns or flowers to the head and the tail to the front of the body. 

10 – Now that all of your main pieces are decorated (excluding hair, utters, flowers or the bell – these will be added after the cow is assembled), it is time to start assembling the main pieces. Align the front and back body pieces and begin hand sewing around the edges to bring them together. 

If adding utters, be sure to sandwich this piece between the two main body cut outs. Once about half of your cow is sewn together, tuck in a few cotton balls to the legs to begin filling it out. 

11 – Continue sewing and stuffing the body until the cow body is complete. Tie off your thread before attaching the head. 

12 – Repeat step 10 of sewing and stuffing with cotton balls but this time with the head. Be sure that when sewing around the neck area, you sandwich the body between the front and back portions of the head, sewing through all 4 layers to ensure that the head is fully attached. 

Likewise, if adding horns, sandwich these pieces between the two layers of the head much like you did previously if including utters. 

13 – After the head and body are attached together, you can add the bell, fringe hair, flower crown or other details. 

For the bell, simply fold the brown “leather” strap around the cow’s neck and place the bell between the two ends. In a star pattern, stitch the three pieces together. 

For a hair-like fringe, slice an oblong piece of felt and fold it over the cow’s head between the ears. Stitch along the ridge of its head before repeating again with a slightly shorter piece of felt to add more dimension. Fluff the fringe as needed. 

For a flower crown, simply stitch round snippets of felt in various colors folded in half to the top of the cow’s head between the ears. 

14 – After all the accessories and final details have been added, sew a small strip of felt folded over (in the main body color) to create a loop for attaching to your mobile. 

Now your cow is finished! Repeat the steps above to create other cows as desired. 

15 – Once all your cows are finished,  disassemble the existing mobile, taking care to not cut any of the strings too shortly so that you can reuse them. 

16 – Lay each of the mobile pieces in piles to the side. Then, begin laying out your arrangement and mobile design. I opted to have the four cows in each corner with one flower with the bee in the center. The green leaves and balls then were added in a mix of directions as well.

17 – When your design is decided, use your needle and the existing threads to restring each piece before tying the string at the base. I decided to hang the bee on the flower horizontally to ensure that the baby can enjoy the flower from the bottom as well. After each other element is strung though, feel free to adjust it on the string as necessary by pulling it up or down (except for the cows and bee flower which will be tied on at the end of the string). 

18 – Continue assembling each piece until your mobile is complete! 

19 – Next, attach your mobile hanger to your crib and hang up the mobile. With your alpine cow mobile now finished, stand back to admire your work for your nursery mobile DIY! 

Final Thoughts 

I have absolutely LOVED the way that this nursery mobile DIY turned out and can’t wait for the baby to enjoy it! With a mix of colors in the cows, design pieces in the flower and bees and details of the small bells, it feels like the perfect mobile for an alpine setting, especially once hanging in front of a mountain scene. Certainly, creating the cows became a bit more time involved than I had initially anticipated, but the assembly was quite quick and overall the final result feels worth the effort. Would you attempt a nursery mobile DIY like this for an alpine theme? Or you could even tailor this approach to another theme as well. If so, be sure to let me know in the comment section below and save this post for future nursery projects!

Happy creating!

Chloe 

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