31 Days Of Button Ideas And Adventures

My project Putting buttons I own a mirror. Ready to hang.

I decided to make buttons the subject of this October's 31 day challenge. I first became interested in them when I won part of a button collection at an auction. I loved how neatly they were sewn onto a cloth according to type, size, color. It fit my OCD MO perfectly. That is my obsessive-compulsive-disorder method of operation.

Everything right where it ought to be and it can't move around! In this world, MY world, that makes it unusual and wonderful. 

However there is one catch. No one told me that with buttons 1 is never enough. One button leads to 2 buttons and that my friend is a collection of buttons. One collection of buttons is never enough which leads to more buttons and that is not bad, but there are more ways to put a design on a 1 inch circle than there are rabbit tails in a meadow. You've got all those? Well, my friend you are doing quite well, but...what about the square ones,

Czech  Glass

 triangle, rhinestones etc. You say you have them? In every color? How about glass, 

metal,

mother of pearl

MOP

 or bone, leather, clay studio buttons, ceramic, portrait, enamel, stone, twig,

Goofies or like a real item

 goofy buttons. What are they you ask? Just more ways to suck you in. It is button crack on steroids.

One day you are a normal slightly off kilter adult going about your business and then WHAM you are checking ebay, etsy, the clothes at Goodwill, and you come up for air and you have 42 storage boxes FOR THE SPECIAL ONES. THE OTHERS ARE IN JARS (if you catch a break). So then you start thinking, about what to do with all the buttons you have. Sell them, make crafts out of them, jewelry, put the really nice ones in a suitable setting so they don't get banged around, try to give some away, sit and sort?

Use in craft projects

Crafting

Sorting

more sorting

still more sorting

sorting

Add caption

It doesn't get cuter than this

More sorting

So I have lots to tell you this month. How to mount them on foam core. Crafts I have made, want make or that someone else made. Interesting things about buttons and their world and how they add pleasure to our world. I hope you will come back and follow me this month and enjoy it. I'll try to make it fun and maybe you'll get some ideas you can use, and leave me a message with your ideas, too.  

Drawers

"There are few things so futile, and so amusing, As a peaceful and purposeless sort Of old random jottings set down in a blank book You've unearthed from a drawer as you looked for your bank book"

Amy Lowell (American critic, lecturer, and poet 1874-1935)

One of my strangest collections is drawers, especially sewing machine drawers. It started accidently. Someone put out an old singer sewing machine out for trash pick-up. I had wanted an old sewing machine for a long time so I tried to put it in my trunk. I have a compact model car and it has all of it's paint. I mean there are no chips and only 1 ding on this car which was put there by a kid at Goodwill who was supposed to be "Helping" me put a little stand in my car!  Ok, 'breathe'

It was 10:30 pm and so I couldn't go to the house to let them know that I would take the machine. I made enough noise trying to put it into my trunk. I suspect they were hiding behind their curtains watching me however. So, anyway, I had already loaded the drawers in my trunk and figured I'd come back and get the rest of it in the morning. Well, as you've probably already guessed the trash pick-up had come and gone as had the sewing machine, BUT, I had the drawers, although I didn't know what I was going to do with them they were kind of neat looking and I put them on a shelf in the garage.

Time past and my sister gave me an old Singer from our brother that was in real need of repair. I said I'd take it. But it was REALLY in need of repair, like starting from scratch and I didn't want to do THAT much fixing, so I took those drawers and...no I didn't throw the whole machine away ...

I tore all the wood off and found a glass and metal coffee table and put that on it. So now I have more drawers from sewing machines. Someone saw I had them and asked me if I wanted theirs...I sighed...and said yes.

I'm decorating with them.

Using them for storage

And storing them.

So now I have about 15 sewing machine drawers, 1 unique kind of looking table for my picture frames and still no Singer sewing machine. I've given up on that idea. Now I'm searching for old money. Maybe it will work the same way.