Colourful Crane Mobile

A few year back I had folded a bunch of origami cranes that I had hanging from a long strand in the corner of my room.  I got a bit bored with the way it look so I made a mobile with the cranes to change things up.  The cranes were in pastel shades so I arranged them like a rainbow.  The cranes move gently in breeze and liven up the room much more then they did before.

Step 1: What You Will Need

• 5 cm (~2inch) square Origami paper
• 20 gauge wire
• Small beads(3-5cm diameter)
• Needle and thread
• Key ring

Step 2: The Frame

First I formed two circles with the 20 gauge wire.  The larger has a diameter of 25cm and the smaller circle 15cm. I then painted them white with craft paint.  Once that had dried I used white embroidery thread to tie the two circles together at 4 points and left long strands of thread at each point for hanging the mobile.

Step 3: The Cranes

I had folded these cranes a few years back so the tedious part of this project is already done.  For instructions on how to fold a crane there are several instructables available for that: How to make an origami crane.  I used six pastel colours for my mobile.  There are around a hundred cranes, though not in equal numbers of each colour (I didn't have very much purple).  I sorted the colours and divided them into groups of how many cranes I want on each string.  There are 3-6 strings of each colour with 3-5 cranes per string.

To string the cranes, I first knotted the tread at one end then I added a bead.  I added the crane by drawing the needle through the gap between the head and tail at the bottom and piercing through the paper at the top.  I added another bead about 2-3cm further up the thread, tied it in place then added another crane so it sits on top of the bead. I added the rest of the cranes in this fashion once the strand was complete. I left about 5-10 cm of thread for tying it to the wires.  I found a place to hang them up while I was finishing the rest so that they don't get tangled (and my cat can't get at them).

Step 4: Hang Your Cranes

Now that the cranes have been strung it is time to decide how to arrange them.  I wanted rows of colours like a rainbow.  To make it easier to tie the strands on, I hung the frame to raise it up.  I tied the strands to the frame one row at a time spreading them out across the circles .  Once all of the strands are hung, I tied the embroidery thread from the frame to a key ring for easy hanging.