Handmade Teacup Pincushions

Looking For New Art & Craft Projects

A friend of mine gave me my first teacup pincushion a couple of years ago. I thought it was a genius gift, made with a ceramic teacup and saucer and embellished with ribbon and silk flowers. I do a lot of sewing, fabric, and sewing projects but normally keep my pins stashed in my sewing notions box. But a teacup pincushion is small, decorative, and functional work of art.

I recently went on a road trip to visit my daughter and her bf in Gainesville, Florida before continuing on to visit relatives in South Carolina. My Aunt Laurie is quite crafty and has an entire walk out basement set up with various tables so her grandkids can work on projects when they visit. She was looking for another craft idea to make items to sell to benefit a charity group. I mentioned the teacup pincushion and she thought that was a great idea.

She had a black and white toile cup and saucer that was perfect for the project. She found a coordinating fabric for the pincushion portion then glued some extra Christmas greenery and ribbons to embellish it. It came out so I great I think she decided to keep it for herself.

New Project to Make for My EBay Store

After a recent move from a large house to a small apartment and decided to put my EBay store on hold. I finally feel like I’m all moved-in, unpacked, and settled in so I thought it might be time to revisit The Creative Cottage EBay store. Although my EBay store didn’t show any listings that were available to relist since I had closed the store over 6 months ago, I was happy to find that with a bit of searching I was actually able to find some of my old listings. So I was able to re-list a few items and use that as a template to list new items.

My original EBay store sold vintage and retro collectibles and home decor items. I have so many beads and craft supplies on hand that I knew this time around I wanted to start making a few items to either sell on EBay or even possibly on Etsy. I have tons and tons of vintage dishware, which I either haven’t had a lot of luck selling online or never even got around to photographing to add it to my online store.

Suddenly a light went off and I thought, “Ah-ha, I really like that teacup pincushion my Aunt Laurie made. I should think about making a few of my own.” I went through all my closets and dug out all my boxes on vintage home decor to take inventory of teacups and saucers and discovered that I have quite the stash. I also have lots of fabric, beads, and ribbons on hand. I took a quick trip to my local Michael’s store to buy a glue gun, glue sticks, a large bag of batting, and some silk flowers.

Teacup Pincushion Photo Album

The gallery shown below shows my first attempts at making teacup pincushions. I spent the Christmas holidays at a friends house and knew he would be spending a bit of his vacation time doing home improvement projects. So I packed up 2 boxes of arts and crafts supplies so I could make a few teacup pincushions to keep me occupied while he was working on his house. I made 12 different pincushions during the 3 days I was visiting and I still have all the supplies, including teacups and saucers, to make another 20+.

I’m not sure I they are going to sell, or if I will give some away as gifts to friends and family, but I decided to call it quits after making a dozen. But it’s nice to know I have the supplies to make more in the future if I so desire. My first attempt at taking photos of the pincushions didn’t turn out too good. I used a white background in my lightbox but it turned out looking a bit gray. So I decided to change the setup of my lightbox, add more light, and add a more interesting background using some of my fabric scraps.

If you would like to purchase any of my teacup pincushions, or take a look at the vintage and retro collectibles I have for sale, please visit my EBay store: http://www.ebay.com/usr/thecreativecottage.