Start With a Twenty-Five Cent Picture Frame

I love shopping at thrift stores. I nearly always manage to find something that sparks my creative urges. A friend and I went shopping at our local Humane Society's Thrift Store, and I found a picture frame for only 25 cents. Not a great picture frame, it's only paper covered cardboard, but it gave me the opportunity to try something I've had in mind for a while now. I made a quilted picture frame pincushion. A little batting, a small piece of scrap fabric and some hot glue, and the 'quilting' part was finished.

 I crocheted a small pillow case, just big enough to fit into the window part of the photo frame with size 10 thread, and a size 5 hook. No fancy stitch work here, just a simple granny square stitch. I sewed a little pillow to fit inside out of more scrap fabric, sewed the case shut, and my pincushion was complete.

I made mistakes making this picture frame pincushion. I definitely need more practice working with fabric. There were small gaps in the fabric in the corners of the window frame, and I should have worked in smaller sections when I was gluing the pincushion into place. I dove into my craft stash, and pulled out some of my beading supplies. I hot glued a border of pearl ribbon in between the pincushion and the quilted part of the picture frame. It worked to pretty up my wonky glue job for the most part, but not for the corners. I hot glued some tear-drop shaped pearls into the corners. I love my hot glue gun!

 At this point, I was pretty much finished. It just didn't look .... complete to me. I decided it needed some pretty pins, so out came the bead supply again. A little more hot glue here to hold my bead arrangements in place, and I had some pretty pins to use in my quilted picture frame pincushion.

 I can see more of these picture frame pincushions in my future, but I'm not sure of they will be quilted like this or not. I'd love to try some embroidered, but I'm still working on my skills in that area.

 

This is the gift I made my dear husband for his birthday, A Little (Embroidered) Love Note wall hanging thanks to a tutorial I found at pinksuadeshoe.com. The wooden embroidery hoop is another thrift shop find. I don't have a sewing machine, so all my stitching was done by hand. It only took me three tries to embroider one that I felt comfortable giving to him. He liked my gift very much, and it now hangs right beside his desk.

Hope you all are enjoying this long holiday weekend. Happy crafting!