Buttons

[Taniwolf]

Hi I recently got a huge bag of buttons
at the local thrift store.
I couldn't believe how many different buttons
a person could collect.
I can't believe how many projects that i can do with buttons.
do you all use buttons?

[alsmouse]

No, I've just lost mine.:)) ~C8>

[alsmouse]

OK, seriously now, Yes I can. Back in the Dino days when I was even shorter than I am now, Knotts Berry Farm was really a fun place to go. They had a old fashioned museum and one of the exhibits was a few walls of buttons on cards that Mrs Knott & her Aunt had collected over the years. They would be worth a fortune now but they were really nice and must have been over 5000 of them all sewn on cards & mounted on the walls in frames. made of all sorts of stuff & from all over the world. That was when the Knotts were still alive & she still cooked in the kitchen if you were lucky. The park still had a Farrier, a chicken that played piano for chicken feed & they poured real sassparilla in the saloon. Penny candy was still a penny & you could hiss & boo at the live theater. You could even pan for gold. YUP, I'm OLD. ~C8>

[stampin stacy]

I used them on some window valences I made to hang tassels from. That way the tassels could be removed for laundering. Each valence had a different antique button on it.

For stamped things I like to use them as part of the closure to a decorative box, altered journal, or hand made book. Just remove the shank and then glue them to the front, put a ribbon on the back page and then you can wrap the ribbon around the button to close.

[alsmouse]

I also saw in one of the craft mags, someone splitting a dowel, placing a shanked button with an interesting relief in the split, taping it in place & using it as a seal in sealing wax or deco hot glue. The results were very nice but I wondered if it needed to be sprayed with "Pam" before doing it so it would release. Nothing in the article about that aspect. ~C8>

[j3annin3]

Buttons are great! Besides using them as buttons, (i sometimes change the buttons on my sweaters to a different one at each openning) or working them into earrings and other jewerly, (findings available at most craft stores) or even as a decorative element on things like picture frames, lamps, or drawer fronts; i've been making them into something like fake flowers. At first i just made the really nice ones into magnets, then into collages on magnets, (they were gifts for friends and then a bride liked them enought to ask me to make them for in the favors i was making for her wedding! Go figure?) and then finally i started layering/wiring/glueing them and sometimes beads, together into somthing that's sort of a cross between a flower and an ornamented chopstick. I keep them in an old vase and they're just fun to look at and play with. Every now and then someone takes one to put in a flower pot, or use on a hat, gift or just to have for them selves and that's nice. People like to touch buttons. They were made for hands to use them.

But, there are books and books about buttons and what might be done with them. And they're pretty to look through, the books-i meant. Buttons are kind of like beads, if you can conceive it, you can do it! They're always ready to cooperate.

Did you have any plans when you bought them? Or did you just see the great bunch of them and smile? Like a gubble bum machine full of bits of fun?


My first button magnet was from my mum's coat. It was a very old coat, heavy, nubbly wool, sort of pea soup, sea sick green with an itchy textured weave. It had a broad peter pan collar and 5 big round thick buttons down the front. The lining was magenta satin. She wore it everywhere and forever. It made it very easy to find her in a crowd. After she died i had to go through her clothes. When i came across that coat hanging there with her monster black patent leather pock-a-book, it pretty much broke my heart. It smelled like her, it felt like her. It seemed it represent her in a very true way. When she wore that coat she looked like most everyone else's mother, until she unbuttoned it. Then that amazingly different lining would flash like a rose on a snow bank, or a wind chime in a breeze. It was a true expression of her more secret self, bright and rich and warm and smooth, the part of my mum that few people ever got to know.

I can't always remember her face anymore, but i remember that coat and purse even after all these years. The boxy hard shiny purse found a home easily. It was a vintage collectable in excellent condition. The coat- no one wanted. Too far out of style, cut strangely (it bunched up a bit at under the arms), or maybe it was the lining. Or the way it smelled like wintergreen because she always kept a roll of lifesavers in her pocket, maybe it was just ugly; it was old when she got it at a tag sale. I don't know exactly why, but no one would take it. Finally i had to give it to the Salvation Army, but i couldn't just let it all go. I took the big buttons and kept them for a very long time. Years later, i found them in the bottom of my jewerly box and decided to make somthing from them for my sisters and me. The buttons are at least 2inches across and 3/8 thick. They are cold and smooth and slightly faceted. When i held all of them in my hands they clacked and clinked like castinets. I used magenta floss to add smallish beads through the 4 holes, a different color-way for each sister and epoxyed on a strong magent. So, now we all have a big jade button stuck on our refigerators and it's another secret, a talisman if you won't think me overly dramatic, a piece of my mum's magic except that it looks like an old coat button.

[alsmouse]

Jeannine, In my minds eye I saw you your mom in a large crowd, the pea green coat did stand out since it was from the 60s and everyone else had black or blue. the texture was a nubby weave wool and was a scratchy soft texture so it felt both nice & bad at the same time. I can even see the big clunky buttons with the slightly curved faces matte enough to not catch the light but shiney enough to let you know it was a different plane. I would love to see the neat magnet you made of them all. Thank you fro a great description.~C8>

[Spideycindy]

I, too, thank you. I have a old well worn small box of buttons my grandmother kept...many were just plain functional replacement buttons for shirts mostly white or cream with age but there were a few glass ones and I love them and look through them and hold them every so often...What you did was display a warm cozy memory and that was awesome...funny how coats evoke memories...I am remembering tweedy and thick coats I clung to when little...add to that dim memories of funky Christmas ornaments women wore during the holidays...sort of like corsages with mercury bulbs and fake tree sprigs and ribbons...wow...trippen down memory lane also older than dirt as you can tell...did your mom wear a coffee coat in the kitchen...sort of like a house coat? I have buttons from those as well.
Spideycindy

[j3annin3]

Thank you very much, i feel less lonely-ish now. It's funny what makes a memory. Alsmouses' description of her visits to Knotts Berry Farm, and your rememberance of the weird stuff women wore on those heavy coats, is now part of my memory too.

No, Spidey, she wore sweats and/or long thermal undies. And sometimes an apron, she missed having pockets. Did your mom have stuff in her house coat pockets? Isn't it nice to have the buttons?

You're right alsmouse, they were matte and clunky. Did you have a coat with clunky chunky buttons? Was the fabric strangely similar to horsehair upholestry? Do you still have it?

[Inky Whiskers]

I also saw in one of the craft mags, someone splitting a dowel, placing a shanked button with an interesting relief in the split, taping it in place & using it as a seal in sealing wax or deco hot glue. The results were very nice but I wondered if it needed to be sprayed with "Pam" before doing it so it would release. Nothing in the article about that aspect. ~C8>

If you press the textured button (or other item you wish to impress with) on a clear ink pad (i.e. Versamark), the ink will act as a release. At least, that's what you're supposed to do when using rubber to press into hot glue or wax, so it should work with other things too. :D

I saw a bunch of paper flowers using fancy buttons for the centers on a magazine cover recently, I just can't remember what magazine right now. :confused:

[stampin stacy]

Another idea for old buttons or colorful new ones:

display them in glass jars in your craft room.

[j3annin3]

They are pretty in a jar, but if you need to run your fingers through them a bowl is good too.

Do you have buttons too Stacy?

[stampin stacy]

A huge antique tin full of buttons from my grandmother and her sister (my great aunt). Funny thing is some of the buttons in it are from my own childhood. She collected them off clothes we were going to throw out and now I have them back again, I can even remember the clothes they came from.

[alsmouse]

Did your mom have stuff in her house coat pockets? Isn't it nice to have the buttons?Mom always had tissues in her pockets. If they weren't in her pockets, they were up her sleeve. Of course this always ment that come laundry day there was a blizzard of tissue on the laundry & kitchen floors since she never remembered to take the m out before doing the laundry. :)) All her robes zipped. She hated buttons on robes.

You're right alsmouse, they were matte and clunky. Did you have a coat with clunky chunky buttons? Actually I had a thick wool plaid jacket/coat in high school that Mom made me. It was teal/purple/blue & rust & was pea coat weight wool but cut like a guys flannel shirt. It had breast pockets with flaps that buttoned and all the buttons were deer horn. That was a real fashion statement in trendy So Cal. in the 70's. Was the fabric strangely similar to horsehair upholestry? no. Do you still have it? No, it would never fit & it was given a good home by a kid who had a lot less than I did.

[Spideycindy]

Thank you very much, i feel less lonely-ish now. It's funny what makes a memory. Alsmouses' description of her visits to Knotts Berry Farm, and your rememberance of the weird stuff women wore on those heavy coats, is now part of my memory too.

No, Spidey, she wore sweats and/or long thermal undies. And sometimes an apron, she missed having pockets. Did your mom have stuff in her house coat pockets? Isn't it nice to have the buttons?

You're right alsmouse, they were matte and clunky. Did you have a coat with clunky chunky buttons? Was the fabric strangely similar to horsehair upholestry? Do you still have it?

Yep pocket with kleenex always neatly folded, seldom used and heaven forbid if she saw something that needed cleaning off any of us because the old spit and polish went into action...<yuck> She also used aprons in the kitchen and had a special one for all the clothes pins for when she went out to hang up clothes on the line out back. The sheets smelled wonderful, the towels felt like sandpaper and naturally exfolliated. Funny I made a pattern from the old laundry apron because my mother loved it to pieces and it still lives in service at her house still holding clothes pins and a cloth to clean the line off before any hanging least there be any dust or dew on the line. It's like a huge pocket open on both sides for easy clothes pin grabbing and boy can it get heavy! The new model is made of kettle cloth.

[Inky Whiskers]

You ladies are seriously dredging up the flash backs with this thread! :lol: My Great-grandmother had a laundry apron & can I remember "helping" her hang out the wash in the summer. I also remember helping with the bleaching of the whites down in her basement. She would half fill this huge galvanized tub with hot water, add the bleach & swish it around & add the fabrics that need that extra cleaning ompf. To agitate the load, she used a rubber toilet plunger. It was kinda like making butter, but didn't smell as good. :lol:

[alsmouse]

Well, since Mom grew up using a wash board for the first part of her life, she swore that as soon as she could, she would have a washer. After we moved to CA, we had a laundry pole that spun and looked like a upside down square umbrella. She had a multi toned green canvas bag that she made using a old coat hanger to hold it & she would hang our clothes out. Until she convinced Dad that it was hip to have a dryer. We all still have clothes pins from the original green bag that we still use for stuff around the house or camping.
As for the spit polish treatment by Mom, us kids never had to go thru that since she made sure we left the house in immaculate condition. & always washed up after eating out & checked ourselves in the mirror before leaving the bathroom or we would be marched back to be polished by her.
Luckly, as she gets older, she has let some of the 40's & 50's attitude drop away. YEAH!!!!!! ~C8>

[Spideycindy]

You ladies are seriously dredging up the flash backs with this thread! :lol: My Great-grandmother had a laundry apron & can I remember "helping" her hang out the wash in the summer. I also remember helping with the bleaching of the whites down in her basement. She would half fill this huge galvanized tub with hot water, add the bleach & swish it around & add the fabrics that need that extra cleaning ompf. To agitate the load, she used a rubber toilet plunger. It was kinda like making butter, but didn't smell as good. :lol:

Mine also had a Modern electric wringer and that machine was seriously terrifying to me. We were warned to stay miles away from it! But you know our grand and great grandparents were always re-purposing tools to meet their needs. It is rather funny to watch designing programs that bring up this "new" idea to repurpose items in our homes...That plunger was a great idea. Did she also use "Bluing?" To make whites whiter?

[alsmouse]

Did she also use "Bluing?" To make whites whiter?Mom still uses "bluing" & I do too on occasion. When Grammie came to live with us, and her hair was "white" when ever it started to pick up a yellow cast mom rinsed it with a light mix of bluing & white vinegar to bring it back to sparkling white. (hense the term blue haired old lady)
Here's a real flash back. Do your remember taking a brick, putting it in a pietin, dropping blueing over it & a "secret mix" that only dad knew? It would grow crystal trees on it in about 2-5 days in the neatest colors & shapes. I think we had a brick growing just about every year I was in elementry school. Very cool to impress the boys with at that age. That & my teepee in the back yard. (not real but they thought it was)~C8>

[j3annin3]

Laundry was such a chore then! It's just another thing to do now, but then it was a large and endless undertaking. I am so glad to have the machines we do now.


Alsmouse, is that really where "blue haired little old ladies" comes from....
I worked in an older people's home and most of them just out and often dyed thier hair various shades of 'steel' and smoke and silver, but really was just blue. (And then those as choose pink and apricot rinses just to be different) I'd always figured that when i started to get the urge to color my gray till it was some sort of cotton candy pastel, it'd be time to get my poodle-doo, hookup with a bingo playing bunch of oldsters and roam K-mart waiting for a blue light special! Now what do i have to look forward to?

It's been really nice hearing your memories of mom(s) and laundry and buttons.
We never got the lick and promise sort of kleenex cleanning either. You have my sympathy Cindy. On her good days my mum was distictly concerned about germs and would have near fainted if anyone rubbed spit on anything in an effort to clean it. She did carry lots of stuff in her pockets. By the end of the day i could tell pretty much just what she'd been up to by their contents. Does your mother still carry neatly folded tissues?


I can picture the shreds of rolled and crumpled tissue from your mom's laundered kleenex alsmouse. Do you know your father's secret sause for growing crystals on bricks?

I remeber bleaching too, Inky Wiskers, doing laundry was serious work. A womans' sense of self esteem could be seriously affected by how clean she managed to get the wash. Do you remember the red rough hands left over from wringing out the bleaching? And that old sock smell that just would't go away?

[alsmouse]

Alsmouse, is that really where "blue haired little old ladies" comes from....Yes
I'd always figured that when i started to get the urge to color my gray till it was some sort of cotton candy pastel, it'd be time to get my poodle-doo, hookup with a bingo playing bunch of oldsters and roam K-mart waiting for a blue light special! Now what do i have to look forward to?
Going to stamping conventions wearing the MiMi blue eye shadow, glow in the dark rouge cheeks and black lipstick to complement the bright orange, and lime green tuft hair doo held together with fused plastic bag twisties embellished with stickles & puffpoms. sporting the latest in your fashion forward fused plastic bag dress, carrying a fused plastic bag tote, both with incorporated hand stamped cards & atcs approperate to the convention with an un-decorated tin foil hat wearing our thigh high lace-up hand stamped birkenstocks with hand knit socks. :)) :)) ~C8>
It's been really nice hearing your memories of mom(s) and laundry and buttons.
Does your mother still carry neatly folded tissues? Mom's always started out folded but ended up wadded up by the end of the day. And you always cringed when she attempted to hand you a wadded up one since you knew it wasn't fresh. ~C8>
I can picture the shreds of rolled and crumpled tissue from your mom's laundered kleenex alsmouse. Do you know your father's secret sause for growing crystals on bricks? I'm going to try to get it. I don't know if he remembers it it was a few decades ago.
A womans' sense of self esteem could be seriously affected by how clean she managed to get the wash.
Too bad even to this day, women think cleanliness is a reflection of their self esteem, and all ages too, not just ones who grew up during the time when it was "programed" into them to think that. Look at all the ads for antibactrial soaps. They are in everything. ~C8>

[Inky Whiskers]

Did she also use "Bluing?" To make whites whiter?

I have no idea! :lol: She might have. She & my Grammy are gone now & I don't know if my mom knows either. I do remember how red the adults hands got from hand squeezing the hot bleach water out of the clothes before putting them into the washing machine. I also remember how "fresh" the line dried bed linens smelled when making up the beds. :D

[Inky Whiskers]

Too bad even to this day, women think cleanliness is a reflection of their self esteem, and all ages too, not just ones who grew up during the time when it was "programed" into them to think that. Look at all the ads for antibactrial soaps. They are in everything. ~C8>

I think a big part of keeping everything not only clean but looking as good as possible was more than just an image issue for women of the pre-1980's. Yes, women have always been judged based on how well they kept up hearth & home because as a rule throughout history didn't have "real" jobs & this was the easiest way to evaluate their value to society. BUT! It was more than a status judgement, for many women keeping up appearances was an issue of personal pride as well as a way to show their husbands how much they cared & appreciated his hard work to provide for the family. There was also the factor that what you had (whether bought, inherited or home made) usually had to last a long time because getting another one was expensive &/or time consuming if it was even possible to replace the damaged or worn out item. In today's disposible society, I believe women have been reprogramed into thinking they have to do all the "right" things or they will be thought of as horrible person. This means buying the "right" products & throwing away perfectly good stuff to buy the "new & improved" version rather than taking care of what we have. Sure, my Grammy liked to keep up appearanaces as much as the next lady so others would think well of her, but her home home got cleaned every week because she believed it was important to take care of what she had to make it last. It didn't matter if she had anyone coming by that week or not. People also weren't so busy outside the home pre-1980 that they didn't have time to do the neccessary daily/weekly domestic maintenance to keep their homes looking good. These days everybody is so busy going here, there & everywhere but home that in general, people today just don't keep things looking as clean & tidy.

I'm as guilty of this as most everybody else & I know my Grammy would be less than please at the state of my home most of the time. What can I say? I'd rather stamp than clean house! :D

[alsmouse]

I'm as guilty of this as most everybody else & I know my Grammy would be less than please at the state of my home most of the time. What can I say? I'd rather stamp than clean house! :D

You mean there is more to life than family, friends, work & stamping? (and the only reason I put work 3ed was to afford stamping):)) :)) :))
My Grammie would have hauled me by my ear over & made me clean it while she stood over me with a wooden spoon in her hand. I'm glad she can't see my house now. More than one variety of rat lives here.:laugh: ~C8>

[Inky Whiskers]

More than one variety of rat lives here.:laugh: ~C8>

You have pack rats living at your house too? :))

[stamplajolla]

Here's a real flash back. Do your remember taking a brick, putting it in a pietin, dropping blueing over it & a "secret mix" that only dad knew? It would grow crystal trees on it in about 2-5 days in the neatest colors & shapes. I think we had a brick growing just about every year I was in elementry school. Very cool to impress the boys with at that age. That & my teepee in the back yard. (not real but they thought it was)~C8>

I don't remember ever using a brick, but when we were kids we would use a piece of coal. My mom would mix this stuff up and we would pour it on the lump of coal and it would "bloom" crystals. They were beautiful colors and it was so much fun to watch it "grow". It sounds like the same thing. I'm glad I got the recipe from my mom to amaze my kids with it a couple of decades ago.

FLOWERING COAL
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup salt
1 Tbsp ammonia
2 Tbsp bluing
1/4 tsp iodine

I'm curious now to see if it will work on a brick. I had to have my mom send me pieces of coal so I could do this for my kids. I didn't have a clue where to find coal in Southern CA.

MaryAnn

[stampin stacy]

I'm not sure if anyone could find bluing anywhere around here anymore!! :eyeroll: And yes I remember my grandmother using it on her hair too, she had the really white hair naturally so never understood why she thought she need the bluing.

[alsmouse]

I'm not sure if anyone could find bluing anywhere around here anymore!! You're in No. TX, try Kmart(how else do you think they got the blue light special??) and Wally World. They should have it. ~C8> And yes I remember my grandmother using it on her hair too, she had the really white hair naturally so never understood why she thought she need the bluing.
Back in the old days..... soap was made with lye. It had an ability to strip the hair so much that dirt & dust settled into the cuticle of the hair making it look "yellow". To counter that, after women washed their hair, they rinsed with white vinegar & bluing to bring it back to "white. I'm not sure how that "worked" but Grammie always had sharp white hair Worn in double braids over the top of her head. ~C8>

[Inky Whiskers]

I think my Grammy would know the why's & wherefores for bluing even tho' she was into the "peach" look herself. :lol: I'm just glad that Ms. Clarol is my friend, as I'm way too young to walk around with my whitey silver hair showing. DH is as washed out color wise as I am, but it doesn't bother him. Last December a little girl saw him eating lunch in a restaurant and thought he was Santa. The big goof played along! Nobody is ever going to be able to convince that child that Santa ain't real! :))

[stampin stacy]

I found my first White hair at the age of 16 :o . I was at the high school waiting on a pep squad rehearsal to start. We were sitting out side dangling our feet off the end of the steps and a girl walked up behind me spotted it, yanked it out of my head and started yelling and telling everyone. Thanks a lot Monica,:eyeroll: .

Too bad for her I was more popular than her, she and I had already had a disagreement about a boy. It became my mission after that to make sure she was not included in anything my friends and I did.;)

[stampin stacy]

I have a picture of my dad holding my son when he was little and the look says it all. My dad had long white hair, beard and a moustache. He was never too sure but what grandpa might not be Santa.

[Inky Whiskers]

a girl walked up behind me spotted it, yanked it out of my head and started yelling and telling everyone.

How evil of her! Just another reason why I didn't enjoy high school, the girls are often mean & b**chy to each other. Too bad I didn't give a dang enough to satisfy them. :evil: My first grays popped up when I was 22 and pregnant. I should have known then that raising my son was going to be a dark adventure. :shock: