Lessons

Lesson Info

Construction of the Upper Portion

So now we have constructed to possible configurations for our mobile one is the hoop, and the second was the god's eye variation, and now we want to show you a couple of ways you can string these all together, and we're going to start by constructing the upper portion of the mobile. I'm going to show you our first example using the hoop now traditional pie aki uses natural straw like a rise straw it's, beautiful it's really warm, it could be a little bit challenging toe work with, and a lot of the modern pi ang kee have been using paper straws, which honestly had a little bit more easily accessible, and they come in wide range of colors and patterns think we're all sort of familiar with these beautiful red and white stripes straws, but you get online now and you google in paper straws and you're going to find all different sorts of variations. I'm going to be building this pie on key using white straws and typically, how it's done on the upper portions of the string is that you lace sm...

all portions of the straw with some sort of decorative element, and in this case, I'm going to use um punched paper, but first, before we get to the paper, I'm going to show you a couple of tricks on cutting the straws. I'm going to be using these in two lengths and the first ones I want to cut down into two inch segments. So again, I've got a measuring guide on my cutting, matt, I'm just gonna lay the straw down against it, take my scissors right over the two inch mark and kind of get a good grip, and then I'm going to go ahead and slice that, and I'm going to use this first piece that I measured as sort of a template for cutting my subsequent pieces so you can just line it up against the base. And once you get a little bit more proficient at this, you can actually hold multiple straws in your hand at a time. You just have to be careful about I'm flying across the room, but then they're just going to give it another little cut and continue doing that. In addition to paper straws, you can also use colorful plastic straws for the pie on key, which gives it a really different look. It's a lot of fun now you will notice when you're cutting the paper straws. The blades of the scissors tend to pinch and distort the ends of your straw pieces, and a quick and simple way to get rid of that is by using a crafting all now. You don't have to have a crafting all is just something that I had on hand you could just as easily use perhaps a bamboo skewer or the end of a chopstick, and all I'm doing is inserting it quickly into the end, just rolling it around once or twice. And what that does is it just restores the nice round shape to the end of the straw. Now, truth be told, when multiple pieces of these air strung up on the pie on key might not necessarily notice it, but in the event that it does bother you and you want to straighten it out a little bit, this is a quick and easy way to do that, so I've cut some of my straw pieces into two inch segments, and then these longer pieces I've cut down it's about five and a quarter, and so you'll get a better idea how you want to configure it as you play with your first one, and as they say with all of my projects, be kind to yourself the first time you're doing this because they're really experimenting. I want you to have fun with it, and there are a million and one variations you can do on the pie on key it's really up to you, I love that about it that it's, so versatile. So I've gone ahead and pre cut all of our straws. You don't have to sit here and watch me cut straws, but let's talk for a second about these paper ornamentation pieces. Like I said, these were going to be strung between the straw segments on the strings and to do this. I'm just using simple paper punches, these air available in all manner of shapes and sizes at your craft supply store. I'm going to be using a star shaped one today, but, you know, just is easy to get a circle, a scallop, a square. There are heart shapes, all sorts of different varieties. Now I'm just going to be using some colorful copy wait paper, you're going to be thinking as you begin to construct about the color combinations you want to use for your pie on key and for this particular one, I'm going with golden orange stars, and so to do that, I've stack my two pieces of paper side by side just to kind of do double duty. You slide it right into the paper punch and then give it a squeeze and it pops right out. So the great thing about these paper punches is they make quick and easy work of creating these elements, and they all end up. Uniformly shaped now one thing you want to dio after you've cut out your shapes is create a center hole in order to string it onto your thread and to do that, I'm just using an eighth of an inch hole puncher this is a standard item you confined at any office supply store, so I'm going to place it right over the center of my stars give it a quick punch and it punches out to perfect little holes. I've gone ahead again and pre prep some of these, so I've got a nice little stack of orange and yellow stars all cut out with the holes in the center already done for us. So if you don't want to invest in some paper punches, please know that you can just as easily cut out any shape you'd like by hand. It might take a little bit more time, but it's absolutely doable and your mobile will be just as beautiful. So what I'm going to do now is stand up and start stringing these elements onto our threat configuration, so we have twelve individual strands of threat hanging down from our top structure. We're going to group the's into pairs, so I'm going to take two of these. I'm going to match up the ends I'm going to give it just a quick little trip because sometimes they're easier to string if the threat ends are of equal length and I'm going to start by using one of my longer segments now the reason I'm doing this at the very top is because if I started with the shorter segments in the ornamental paper pieces in between, those paper pieces are all going to bunch together up at the very top where it all kind of comes to a point, so to get around that I'm just adding in uh one of the longer straw pieces first for each of these what will be six strands? So I've got the long piece on I'm going to take two of my paper pieces and I'm actually going to take both on orange and a yellow star string them together because I think once they are strong on there, you can kind of fan them out a little bit, which adds sort of a nice decker development. Now that I've added on my long straw segment, my ornamental paper piece now I'm going to start stringing on some of the shorter two inch straw pieces and we're just gonna alternate back and forth for a few segments between the straw and the paper, so again I'm gonna take a yellow and an orange match of the center holes and string them through sometimes it's easier said than done here we go and take your time with this this is actually kind of a fund slower craft it's nothing you need to rush through the other thing that I really love about the pie aki chandeliers is that you can start it and stop it at any time without you know in any way damaging the end effect the end project so if I wanted to work on this for a half hour um and get on with the rest of my day and pick it up again in the evening it is so not a problem um all right I've got two on a third small segments a couple more of the paper pieces and some of the variations I'll show you a little later on um in lieu of paper ornamentation between each one sort of this card stock car text wait paper that I'm using you could also use tissue paper and it has a completely different effect because if he used multiple layers of tissue paper kind of fluffs up and almost looks like a paper flower so I have added a long segments ornamental paper for short segments I'm going to leave the bottom blank and what I'm going to use them to push this all the way up to the top of the knot and then I am going to grab a little clip I've got these colorful sort of little binder clips um but I happen to pick up the dollar store another variation that would work perfectly fine. Are these standards sort of ofthis binder clips that you could find at any office supply store? But what it does is it holds our work in place, so it doesn't all slip off the string as we go on to the next one, so we've created one, we have five more to go, so take your time with these. I'm going to continue to work and get this upper structure completed. All right? So once you have all of your paper pieces and your straw pieces strung onto the six different pairs, it's time now to tie it to whatever your central structure is going to be in this instance, I want to show you how to tie it to the hoop. So again, we're going to leave the clips on there for the time being because just keeping everything together for us now you'll remember on this hoop that we created, we've marked lines every five inches, so we're going to tie the string along those lines that's going to kind of help keep it regulated to form that chandelier shape, so I'm taking with the clips still on there, I'm taking one of the pairs of thread that came out of the bottom, and I'm going toe loosely, tie a knot. And I'm not going to tie it tight yet what I am going to do, however, is take the clip off from right beneath the straw piece and I'm going to clip it just below my loose, not below the wood hoop see that so we're going to go ahead now and we're going to do that all the way around for all six of these pairs because they're not tied tightly, yet they may shift a little bit as you're tying them on initially don't worry about it, we will be able tio tighten them up and make sure that they are all tied right along those pencil marks that we created initially when we made I would hope this is just a little bit of a trick to get it to hang evenly because I found that if I tie them tightly to quickly, I always end up with one side that's a little bit lopsided so this way I can adjust it a little bit more. So again, I tied a loose, not took the clip off from beneath the straw segment and clicked it right below the not below the wood hoop and we're gonna continue on the other thing that I love about the yankees is because they are created out of paper and paper straws and this incredibly light weights um wood veneer you can hang them just about anywhere um you don't need to necessarily drill into your ceiling there are some fantastic hooks that are temporary that will adhere to your ceiling that won't damage the paint or the ceiling finish on dh they'll be strong enough to hold these up just because again they're really lightweight all right working my way around they have three of them tied on there now don't forget that this little points at the hoop where it overlapped and we stapled it that's actually a mark they're at the end of that overlapping peace that we want to tie one of the strings on too, so we sleep tying and nuts switching my clip around two more to go all right in the home stretch, we've got the last one here you can see it's already looking to start starting to look as though it's hanging pretty evenly, which is great we're going to make some minor adjustments and tighten up those knots all right? So I've got the last one loosely tied switching the clip to below the not so we're looking pretty good at this point. A couple of things I want to dio is I want to make certain that when I tie this tightly that I don't have a lot of a gap between the very top of the top straw and my not I don't want it to be super taught or it's going to kind of look a little deformed and bent out of shape. I wanted loose enough that it's gonna hang sort of, you know, with a nice swag uh, but at the same time, it's a it's a little bit of a balancing act, eh? So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to remove my click. I'm going to make sure my threat is right over the top of my pencil line that we drew initially. I want to make sure that my straw is just about to the top, which it is, and I'm just going to tighten up that loose not that I made initially and I'm going to double knot it and that's just going to secure it in place and at that point it's really not going anywhere one fail safe I am going to do, though, because you can still sort of like move it back and forth across the the hoop to adjust it if necessary. I'm going to take a small piece of transparent tape and just place that right over top and that's just going to hold it in place while we work. We're going to end up putting some exterior ornamentation over top of the tape, so you're never even going to see it, so I'm going to continue now just toe work my way around, tightening up the remaining pieces onto the hoop and again, just a gentle reminder you are trying to tie the string right over the top of your pencil mark that's why we did those initially so that when it hangs, you're going to have any unequal, distant space between each of the upper portion strands on it's going to get that nice, elegant sort of chandelier look, so again, I'm coming around and removing the clip I'm making certain that my straws are pushed pretty much up to the top. I want the top of my strong to be just about to the not I created for my hanging loop. You will get better at sort of estimating the amount of attention you need to create sort of a little bit of a swag shape again if you tie it too tightly it's going to really stiffen up in those pieces, they're going to look a little awkward. You want it just loose enough that it's got a good line to it? Secure that with a little piece of scotch tape my cases up. Make sure it's centered over the line, pulling it. Talk to tighten that first, not tying my second one, all right, and the last one removing my clip, making sure the straws air pushed up tightening of the first knots and double knotting it now these remaining strings. The tale ends that you see hanging down, don't trim those. We're going to continue to use those in construction there, actually, what we're going to use to string the lower portion of our mobile, and I'm gonna go ahead and just secure that with a little piece of tape, and we're good. So you've now completed the upper portion of your pie on key again, in this example, were using the hoop that we formed, the bottom portion is going to string together, no matter if you're using the hoop formation, or if you're using the god's eye variation, I'm going to switch over to the gods. I variation next and that's, the mobile. We're going to complete some, actually not going to complete this one just to avoid any confusion, but know that the top portion strings together exactly the same, no matter what your central structure is, as does the lower portion.