Teacup Cactus Pincushion

 Hello!  I'm making an effort to actually get more than one blog post in during the month of April.  It actually wasn't too hard since all I had to do was edit a few photos that I had already taken.  I'm excited to share this fun tutorial with you today.  I've wanted to turn one of my vintage teacups into a pincushion for quite sometime but I had been seeing some adorable succulent and cactus pincushions lately that really caught my eye.  Then I had the brilliant thought to combine the two and I love how it turned out.

If you have been following my blog for awhile you may remember this post about planting succulents in teacups (so this is my first time at the teacup succulent rodeo ha ha).  For this project I decided to use my favorite blush pink and gold teacup and saucer that a friend gave me several years ago.  It goes great in my sewing studio as I have a bunch of blush pink accents in the space.  I started by gluing my teacup to the saucer with hot glue.  Next I measured how tall I wanted my succulent to be and found a circular object that was close in diameter to that measurement.  Then I grabbed a piece of green felt and drew 6 circles on the felt.

Next I cut out the felt circles with pinking shears.

Then I placed two circles together and sewed around the edge leaving about 2-3 inches open at the bottom.  I repeated this step with the other 4 circles.  I used my sewing machine for this step but you could hand sew them too.

Next I stacked the 3 sewn pieces on top of each other and hand stitched a straight line down the middle of the stack.  Make sure all of the open parts of each piece are lined up with each other before you sew them together.

Next I filled the cactus with steel wool (you could also use filler that you would use for stuffed animals but I thought the steel wool would help to keep the pins sharp).

Finally I found some black felt and cut a strip and cut it like grass for a kids art project (does that make sense...my baby/mommy brain can't seem to think of better words to describe that today).  I placed a little dot of hot glue on one end and rolled it up and placed another dot of hot glue on the other end to make the center of the flower.  I apologize that I didn't take a picture of that step.

Then I freehanded the flower and cut out two pieces from pink felt.

When I glued the flower pieces to the cactus I placed the top piece so that the petals lined up with spaces between the petals of the bottom piece.  Finally I glued the stamen piece in the center of the flower.

The final step was just to add the pins.  I think it is so cute and love having the saucer underneath to hold little items like small safety pins, a few of my labels for my Etsy shop items, and my little embroidery scissors.  

Next time I write a post I will be very excited to share my sewing studio and my giant pegboard with you.  It is quickly becoming one of my favorite spaces in this house!