National Button Day

Today is National Button Day.  I made a "button" project this week, but first let's look at my real buttons.

A bowl filled with wood, shell, and other natural buttons.

Metal ones.

Just a few ceramic ones, really heavy.

Oldies with an antique spool gifted by a friend, just today.

Novelty buttons.  My favorites are the flapper face and the Victorian boots.  Must make something with them soon!!!

Vintage jelly jars full of plastic buttons.

Warm ones from the jelly jars look good enough to eat.

The cool colors from the jelly jars.

 

A friend brought these from Tender Buttons, an entire store of buttons, located in Manhattan.

And of course, pig buttons.  The one on the right is a gift from a friend.

Back to my "button" project.  I saw large fake buttons hanging on a wall on some blog the other week and decided I needed some in my sewing room.  I don't know what their's were made of - they weren't very visible in the photograph - but around here, I like to make things out of frisbees.

These were on sale for only 77 cents each, on account of them being Halloween frisbees.  The Christmas ones were $1.29 and that is still tons cheaper than what I paid for the frisbee I bought to make my clock.

I lucked out when my husband volunteered to drill holes in them for the "thread." 

All I had to do was decoupage fabric over the top.

A little yarn through the holes, and voila - buttons.  Compare to the size of real buttons, on the left.

Tomorrow these big guys go up on the wall.

Still not had enough of buttons? There's the National Button Society.  

Many states have their own societies, e.g. the Wisconsin State Button Society, whose 2nd Vice President is Charlotte Ann Button.  Check out the award-winning buttons from 2012.  Also the ones from 2011.

For books, there's Buttons by Diana Epstein and Millicent Safro, founders of Tender Buttons.   This book is available in the library system.  Diane also wrote The Button Book, and A Collector's Guide to Buttons.