7.23.2011

Tim Hortons Coffee Cup Pin Cushion Tutorial

I have a few crafts on the go right now, but nothing completed.  As a result, I figured why not post a project I completed in the past?!  {wonderful}

When the craft club with the girls first began, we had decided we would all make pin cushions together.  They came over to my house, and my friend Meowie (as she will be named here) brought some Tim Hortons coffee (mmm!) with extra empty cups.  Since she has such good forethought she thought we could use them as the skeleton for our PIN CUSHIONS. She actually did end up using hers as a skeleton, covering it in felt and making a cute little cupcake cushion!  But then Ang brilliantly suggested we just do coffee cushions!  So an idea was born!  {Good} ideas happen in teams I think.  :)  A classic Canadian icon was now going to be turned into a holder of pins.  I'm not sure if it's blasphemy, but I sure like it!  So without further ado...

HERE IS A SNEAK PEEK..!


milk swirl

Let me just add, before we begin the tutorial, that all you folks that are not living in Canada or the Northern States, you can simply switch up the cup for a Dunkin' Donuts cup!  I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in Europe, not sure there is one actually!  But if there is, just use your favourite coffee joint's cup as substitution.

Tim Hortons Pin Cushion Tutorial

What you'll need: 

ONE Tim Hortons Coffee Cup (or cup of your choice) 
Felt fabric - one sheet brown, one sheet white
Polyester batting
Sewing needle
Sewing thread
Glue gun or other glue

Step 1.  Make the cup base.  Take your Tim Hortons cup and, using scissors, cut the cup in half, 1cm under the logo.  The cut on the bottom of the top half may not have been perfect, so just clean it up a bit after you make the cut.  Now take that bottom piece, turn it upside down, and insert it into the top half.  It should fit in pretty snug.  Take your glue gun, and glue where the bottom of the bottom piece is touching the inside of the top cup. 

See the glue??

Step 2.  Cut out your felt.  Grab a bowl or something round, (8-9" in diameter), and trace a circle onto your brown felt.  Cut it out.  Now cut out your milk swirl; just free hand it.  Take your white felt, and starting as if from the outside of the swirl as you can imagine it, start to cut a slightly wavy circle.  Once you reach the area of your first cut, keep cutting inside of that, and keep going around until you reach a 'centre'.  Once you reach 'centre', start cutting back out,  this will form your swirl once you reach back to the point of your initial cut.  Make the swirl just about 1cm thick.


Step 3.  Create your coffee pin cushion ball.  Take your sewing needle and thread (doesn't matter what colour) and baste stitch the very edge of your brown circle.  Once you reach the end, pull on the thread, this will gather the fabric.  Keeping it gathered, with decent hole opening, take your batting, and start stuffin'!!  You want to stuff it enough that the sides are pretty well filled out, so really shove it in there!  Don't be shy!  Once fully stuffed, pull hard on the thread, but try not to break it, or you'll have to start all over!  You want to pull it so you have only maybe a 1 or 2 cm opening.  Don't cut the thread yet.

Step 4.  Attach ball to cup.  Now, pin still in thread, poke the needle through a spot on the bottom cup you just glued and pull through.  You can now place your coffee ball on the top of the cup.  As seen in the first picture, you will keep poking the needle back up and down all the way around so as to secure the entire ball right onto the cup.  This part is pretty tricky.  When you poke the needle back up, try to poke as close to the place where the felt meets the top of the cup, the thread still won't be visible, and then you can poke it back down the same way.  Keep going around as much as needed.  I honestly don't know how I got my bottom to look so neat, but if yours is not, it doesn't matter, nobody will see it!  On your last poke down, make a knot at the bottom. 

Step 5.  Sew on your swirl!  Place your swirl on top of the "coffee".  Position it how you like.  Take some white thread, and sew it right on!  I sewed it around the edges, not in the middle.

And "Wa-LA" (making fun of my dad, that's how he says it), you're DONE!

There you have it.  Gold...


...becomes more gold!



Please try it out and let me know how it goes!

Happy Sewing!


Love Notes by Lauryn









Pin It

3 comments:

  1. Hi Marg!

    I love this, it's so creative. Do you think only us Canadian will get our affection for Tim's? LOL

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Mel! Thank you!! :)
    Definitely, I am totally convinced it is so. I felt so happy to have been able to recycle the Tims cup...but most people just don't get it! :) The love we have is just completely inexplicable..hahah

    ReplyDelete
  3. thanks you so much for linking this up to flashback fridays. this is awesome!
    flashback fridays is going on again today and will be going all week.. go enter!
    {love} lauryn @ lovenotesbylauryn.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...