Ring-a-ring-a-ring-cushion

I was feeling rather uninspired by the choice of commercial ring cushions on the market - holding the rings will be my 3 years old son's 'special job' at our wedding and I wanted something equally special for him to carry.

Quite by accident I stumbled across Tintock Taps's beautiful white, floral heart shaped ring cushion made for her sister's wedding and suddenly had the inspiration I was looking for. The cushion was originally based on Amy Butler's Snow Mum Pillow tutorial I loved the 3D nature of the pillow and the way the rings could nestle in the centre.

As my dress is going to be Ivory I started out using ivory felt, cutting and hand stitching each petal in turn. But started to feel the colour looked more dirty than ivory.

Given that the wedding theme colour was supposedly 'cadbury's purple' (and at this point no single item purchased or made for the wedding featured purple) I decided to shop around for the right shade purple felt and see how that worked with the concept.

One evening's stitching later, I had finished the main flower. It looked so stunning as it was that I choose to create a round cushion that would almost 'hide' underneath the petals, rather than the larger round or square. Then I started experimenting with ribbon and central pearl colourings white being my first thought, however once the rings were added I felt this was too much contrast.

In the end purple on purple provided a subtle enough background to the ring (which, after all are the main event!) I used two lengths of 4mm purple ribbon, which were attached at their middle under the central 5 point petal. Two of these strands will then be used on the day to attach a ring each side - which 'should' come apart when the bows are gently pulled (well, that's the plan anyway).

To give the cushion a flatter base once the cushion was half stuffed, I drew the centre in with a felt covered 'button' - made from a circle of cardboard wrapped in a felt circle which was gathered and stitched on one side, leaving a smooth button. This was then hand sewn with long stitches through the centre of the base and hidden under the central petal, and a purple pearlized bead added to the middle.

I'm quite proud of this little cushion, it was quite simple to make (thanks to Amy's template) and hopefully will add an extra personal touch to the ceremony!