Copy Cat: Cactus Pincushion
Raise your hand if you have 1,000+ pins on your Pinterest board, but you've yet to actually try a single one of those DIY projects? (MEEEEE, I'm raising my hand as high as it will go over here!) These days I don't send as much time on Pinterest as I used to, but I do get my fair share of DIY ideas from my Instagram feed, which is exactly where I got this one from. When some of my favorites (JoAnn and Elsie & Emma from A Beautiful Mess) teamed up to make a cactus pincushion, I just couldn't resist! It is adorable and with all the sewing I've been doing lately it was a practical project for me too.
One great thing about this tutorial is that it was done beautifully! The photos and step-by-step instructions were super easy to understand... so go ahead and just follow along here!
Here are my two-cents on this this tutorial:
I could not find a white terra cotta pot! I just went ahead and bought the natural color one and painted it with white acrylic paint (it took two coats by the way).
Also, JoAnn was the best place (in my experience) to get the terra cotta pot. If you are just making one cactus per pot, you most likely need a teeny-tiny one and JoAnn was the only place I could find that had them. They were about $.89, but of course if you use your coupon it will be 40% or 50% off! I knew I had a lot of needles so I went ahead and did all three styles of cacti in one pot, but I think either way looks adorable.
Give yourself enough seam allowance if you sew the felt together with your sewing machine. I've never sewn felt before and it was super simple! But my stitching kind of disappeared into the felt and when I went to stuff my cacti some of them had holes that I had to go back and re-do.
If you have not worked with floral foam before beware - it can be messy! I knew I would be making multiple so I did not buy the cone shape that the tutorial recommends. I just bought a long cylinder shape one and used a butter knife to shave it into the shape that I needed. Floral foam can be expensive, so I didn't want to have to buy 2-3 different pieces.
I love my pincushion so much! Compared to what I was using before, this makes a world of difference. I'd love to see some photos of the pincushions you make - post some in the comments below!
