Button button, Who’s Got the Button!

Did you ever stop to think about buttons. Buttons are a necessity of life. Buttons also have a very long history and over time have taken on so many different looks, I would guess they have evolved and changed more than anything else I can think of. A little button history tells part of the story. BUTTONS

Buttons are collector items and there is even a field guide to recognizing what’s what in the button world. Who would have thought that.

 

And they have become a favourite of mixed media artists to. I have this book and although it speaks to using cabochons, there is no reason the same techniques can't be used for buttons.

My hairdresser has a big mirror on the wall whose frame, about 4” wide, is decorated with all manner of buttons. Shiny, flat, bumpy, small and large and endless colours and made from all kinds of materials, like metal, plastic and clay…you get the picture….

I’m leading up to my stash of buttons. On New Years Eve, our very nice neighbour passed away and just a couple of weeks ago her daughter asked if I would like to have any of her mother’s sewing things. So I said yes and what I don’t use, I will donate. She came by later with her mom’s button box. Wow…..Nice… I know it’s hard to see, but there were some really gems in that mix of things. I found some pretties to use in the workshops with Colleen next month.

I was okay with this until I realized that I have been putting off sorting my own stash of buttons, a job that leads to hours of sorting and colour coding and a job that is best left for rainy days. And right on cue, yes, it started to rain, so okay I give up, I will do this.… After I got over that shock, I pulled my box of buttons out of the cupboard…

In my own defense, I do have bags and bags of other things in the box to, like beads that came from thrift store jewellery that had great promise at one time, but alas…not to be.

Not to feel overwhelmed and defeated, I set to the task at hand. Smart one here keeps all those little eeny weeny little plastic zippy bags that come from all manner of places. I spent most of one night and half the next day getting things all sorted. They are now so thinned out, they fit into one little basket, are all colour matched, sorted into little bags and some pretty tins according to colour or type. One small tin is full of my silver metal buttons.

I must say though, I am really glad to have taken on this challenge. I have a nice collection of buttons, factory and hand made and all kinds of types of buttons, but not the overwhelming lot I had. Someone else will be walking into a thrift store soon and think they have found the mother lode of buttons and they would be right…

One thing I discovered in the process in how much I really love brown buttons. I never really thought about them but being so involved over the course of a couple of days, I came to really appreciate the beauty of the simple but so very necessary button. Imagine how we would struggle to keep our clothes closed and from falling down if not for buttons… Food for thought huh!!!