Not Your Average Tea Party!

Amazing Boyfriend should know by now that he should never let me go into thrift stores. I don't think I've ever been (at least since we moved back to our hometown) that I've left empty handed. Our most recent venture is no exception. 

ABF wanted bigger coffee mugs then the tiny ones that his Mom has in her kitchen. So while he was looking at the coffee mugs, I was looking at the other side of the aisle, which had sets of teacups and saucers banded together. There are a bunch of them, but I selected one that the pattern wasn't that faded and picked it up.

"What are you going to do with that?" ABF asked, when he saw what I was carrying. 

My response, "I have a project idea." 

Smart guy that he is, just sighed and kept wandering down the aisle. 

So I bought my cute little teacup and saucer and made it into a pincushion and magnetic pin saucer.

Wanna see how I did it? 

Supplies:
teacup and saucer 
hot glue or super glue or E6000
scrap fabric
needle and thread
polyfil or pillow stuffing
round magnets (optional)


First trace out a 9 inch circle on your fabric. I often use random objects that I find around the house to trace with. For this project, I found that a paper plate worked. My teacup is about 4 1/2 inches so I doubled the size to come up with 9 inches, but if your cup is a little bigger, adjust the size of your circle accordingly.

Cut out your circle. When you have your circle, thread your needle and sew a long running stitch along the edge of your circle. 

Gently pull on your thread to make a pouch-like bag.  Don't sew it closed. Leave it open to be able to add the stuffing.

Carefully fill your "pouch" with your poly-fil or pillow stuffing. Make sure to get it nice and packed. When you have a full "pouch", pull your thread to close the "pouch" and stitch closed. 

When your pouch is closed, it's time to glue it into your cup. You could use super glue or hot glue, but I just used E6000 for this project. 

When my tea cup was finished, I glued it to the saucer using E6000. 

This part is totally optional, you could just stop with the pincushion, or just stop when you glue the saucer and the cup together, but I wanted to add something else to this project that made it even more useful. I glued magnets to the under side of the saucer to secure pins to the saucer instead of having them roll around on the saucer. 

Then you're finished! And you have a cute and unique pincushion and pin plate.

Technically, if you know you're going to make a magnet saucer or just glue the saucer to the teacup, you could do that part first, before you make your pincushion, but that part is completely up to you. Any way you do this, you'll have an adorable and unique little pincushion. 


I'm sharing this project at the following link parties: 

Why Yes, Mason Jar, You Are Perfect...

On a trip to Goodwill to get mason jars for projects for my niece and for myself, this little guy found his way into my basket. 

 this jar is perfect... it even says so

It wasn't until I got home that I realized that it had designs all the way around it so I couldn't use it for the project for my niece. And it's not a wide mouth jar, so I couldn't use it for my project. 

So I had to come up with a completely different use for this "perfect" jar.  

 

I turned him into a soap dispenser! 

Amazing Boyfriend helped me drill the hole in the lid and cut the soap bottle so that I could glue it to the bottom of the mason jar lid. After much debate, and one failed attempt, ABF we decided that JB Weld was the best glue for this project. 

I'm so excited about this project. I'm sure that several people that I know are going to be asking me to make one for them. This one, however, is going to go live at my brother Jonathan's house. I know it will be perfectly appreciated there.