Pasta Jar Pincushion

I've seen lots of idea/tutorials for pincushions, including more than a few mason jar pincushions. This was one of the first crafty things I tried that I found on a blog.

There was kind of a problem though. Most of those people had actual mason jars (with the two part lid). I, however, had a pasta sauce jar that was kind of a mason jar except the lid was all one piece. Not quite as good. So I improvised because I had to have one of those mason jar pincushions.

Maybe you can tell (a few months later) that I just hot glued my little stuffing pod to the lid. And the bottom was just some cardstock paper so it started to be not exactly flat. Here's what it looked like when I first finished. I had to add the ruffle around the edge to hide the lid. I couldn't wrap the fabric around the lid because then it wouldn't be able to screw on.

Then a light bulb went off! I'm a little surprised I thought of something so out of the box, but I'm so glad I did! I had a magnetic snap that was pretty much useless because one of the prongs on one side broke when I was pushing it down (at the time, very frustrating). The magnetized side was still in good shape though. Do you see where I'm going here?

The pasta jar lid is metal. Ding, ding ding!  Now I have a pincushion mason jar but the pin cushion is removable since it's magnetic so I can just take the pincushion part with me if I relocate to somewhere other than my sewing table!

On the bottom of the pincushion I put some cardboard (I guess you could call it that) from a small box that a necklace or something came in. I just traced the lid onto the box and cut it out. Then I used an exacto knife to cut slits for the magnetic snap. I did use hot glue again to attach the fabric to the cardboard, but last time I didn't have an issue with that part peeling.

It even sticks to the side of my sewing machine. Not that I ever leave it there, but it just seems that much cooler. : )

During my spray painting adventure I spray painted the lid so it didn't scream pasta sauce.

What do you think?? I'm still pretty excited about it - I like it much better than my last attempt! Have you done any projects recently that required you to think outside the box in order to finish it with what you had on hand?