Buttons, Buttons, Buttons

I've mentioned before that I have a lot of buttons.

 
The Ritz tin has been their home since before they were my buttons. I'm not sure whether Mum got the tin full of buttons at a jumble sale, or if she already had the tin and just got lots of buttons at the jumble sale, but I'm sure a jumble sale was involved in gaining this volume of buttons.

Everytime I need buttons I pour out the contents of this tin into a plastic bowl, or a series of bowls, to sort and search for what I need.

 
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, I've been saving these jars that came with herbs in them. I've been keeping them with a vague hope that I will make jam. It hasn't happened yet.

Separating the buttons from the Ritz tin feels like breaking a tradition, but I decided it was time. Time to sort the buttons and store them that way! I also like the idea of storing things in ways that make them visible. Not only is it easier to find them, but seeing them constantly reminds me they are there.

 
Sorting an ancient collection of unmatched buttons by colour is a difficult task. Is this more blue or grey? Closer to cream or brown? What about pink and blue together? When will I use a button that is pink and blue together?

 
I also had a few things that are not buttons. And only one button too big to fit into the jars. Poor sad button.

 
All up, I'm pleased with the result. And it was fun to look through all the buttons. There are some crazy ones, especially in the metal jar. Time to get back to finding ways to use them.

More Sock Snowmen

I loved making the first pair of sock snowmen so much that I went to Vinnies and got some more socks. Yay Vinnies! I got 3 pairs of socks AND an Agatha Christie for $3.50.

Actually I still had quite a bit left of the white socks so I used the rest of that up for the bodies, along with the new socks for the jumpers and hats.

I also fixed up the poor floppy fat snowman from before by emptying most of his rice and filling up the rest with stuffing in my patented* rice AND stuffing system.

Now he is skinny!

Filling with stuffing makes it easier to give a snowman-like appearance without tying the ribbon at the top and bottom of the jumper, so I didn't bother with these ones. I just shaped the stuffing into sections as it went in, and the elasticity of the socks does the rest. Or you can just separate the head and body into two sections, which is cute too.

Lots of buttons used up! And some other bits and pieces from my stash.

What a cute little line up!

*Not at all patented.

Little crafts with magnets and cinnamon

A couple of weeks ago I had some friends over for a Christmas crafts afternoon. We focused mainly on cards (which I won't show because I'll be posting them soon), but I also tried out a few other ideas that had stuck in my brain recently.

Of course I can't remember where they came from anymore, but they were about recycling old Christmas cards. The first was to cut a pretty shape from an old card, glue it onto a small bunch of cinnamon sticks and hang it with ribbon. Easy Peasy.

Actually the reindeer was from a card-making kit and was already cut out. Even easier.

Then I tried the same idea with some buttons.

At the moment they are just decorating my fridge.

Along with idea number two. Which was to cut up bits of old cards and attach a magnet to the back. Now I don't have a lot of magnets lying around, and I didn't want to be wasteful. But then a light bulb appeared.

One seriously chopped up magnetic real estate agent calendar later...

The main red and white bits are these vinyl cutouts that Rhiannon brought along for cards, the penguin is from an old Christmas card, the porcupine is a button, and the shapes on the stocking are stickers. I wasn't sure the thin magnet would hold much stuff, but it's proving sufficient.

Sarah brought some scrapbooking stickers and they made great magnets too! Attach sticker to magnet, cut around, put on fridge. Genius.

Kitchen themed and all.

Then I was looking at my card-making stuff and found these old plastic butterflies I bought at some point for some reason.

This has the tinest bit of magnet attached to the middle and it still stays up.

And really, I have more than half of the calendar left. And that was just 2011! I'm never throwing magnetic junk mail away again!

Sock Snowmen

Rhiannon and I feel very differently about Pinterest. This is why I love it - cute easy project ideas. And finding cool blogs or websites you otherwise wouldn't find. This sock snowman comes from the blog "Then She Made" and includes lots of nice pictures with the instructions.

It can be no-sew, and it can be very ethical/eco. If you have socks you don't want any more, buttons, ribbon or string, rubber bands and rice, you're there. In my case, I got rid of some knee socks that I've been keeping despite the fact they cut off circulation to my legs.

I have a few reservations about the rice. As you can see, all the rice creeps to the butt and stays there. Like all foods.

Also when you move him, his head lolls around in a disturbing way that makes me feel like someone will call the soft toy docs on me.

This second one I did with stuffing after a bit of rice at the bottom. The rice helps him sit up properly, but the stuffing stays where you tell it to.

My noses are made from bits of this orange twine that our cat net came wrapped in.

Bennie said he likes the mismatched but colour-coordinated buttons. "They look like homeless snowmen."

Pinterest Progress - Button Pictures

All quiet from me on the blog lately - I've been getting married! More on that soon, but here's something from before that I hadn't published yet.

I have a large tin of buttons, as I may have mentioned previously. I want to use them up, but a lot of craft projects seem to require specific colours, often bright colours, and I don't have many of them. I have a lot of black, white and brown buttons. So one thing I found on Pinterest was button artworks.

So I had a look at the tutorial for the Button Elephant by bustedbutton and decided I would have a go at it.

I decided to make a badger, because I love badgers, and because it exactly suited the colours I have. I painted the background with acrylic paint and in rather more than the recommended "wash" that she does, but that's what I happened to have out at the time to paint some table-tennis-ball eyeballs (more on that in a future post).

Then I hot-glue-gunned away! It was pretty hard to do, especially because I had small areas of colour and not as many small buttons as I'd like, and because my glue gun left lots of trails of glue strands everywhere that had to be picked off. And I had to redo the eyes 3 times because they kept being in the wrong position or angle or something.

Overall I am pretty happy with how it turned out and it was a very quick project.

The thing that baffles me is that I can use SO MANY buttons and the tin seems just as full. I will need to make a lot more button animal pictures. Anyone want one?

Pinterest Progress - Buttons

I've become a bit obsessed with Pinterest, and am in great danger of falling too far into the trap of pinning lots of great ideas that I will never ever try. So both here and on my teaching blog, Jelly Beans and other Tangents, I am endeavouring to try the ideas I pin, blog my success or failure, then remove the pins! Progress!

One thing I desperately want ideas for using is buttons. I have a large tin full of buttons. It came from a jumble sale when I was a child. Some buttons have been used, some added, but the overall rate of change of button quantity has been positive. Sorry, forgot which blog I was on.

First idea: The button Christmas tree ornament.

Very easy to do, if you have the right buttons. I made do with what I had and managed to make two small trees, one with darker greens and one with bluer and paler greens. It took a bit of playing to work out which sizes and shapes and colours worked out best. Also I didn't have a star, but I did have a broken button that has some vaguely star-like qualities. Still need another star-substitute for the second one.

My versions:

It even looks nice in front of my weeds!