For the love of buttons


My button box is very much a work in progress. I feel envy when I see blog photographs of overflowing button boxes. I remember playing with my grandmother's button box as a child and it felt like such precious treasure that I cannot imagine a real pirate's booty giving me a better feeling. From a very young age I spent hours making patterns and pictures, (heck, it was the seventies, choking wasn't such a fear, once you were walking you were pretty much able for anything, I even wore mittens attached through my sleeves on a long piece of string, and guess what? I managed not to hang myself!). My button box is a very poor treasure chest at present, I do save buttons from old clothes and it is growing but I felt it needed boosting.....

These buttons are from Ebay, vintage buttons for a song and I love them, I paid very little and didn't expect much but felt a little flutter of excitement when I opened the envelope (which arrived the very next day). There are so many lovely buttons here, but I do have a few favourites. Apologies for the light, we are grey today, and indeed yesterday, the day before that and so on...

Comments

Charity said…
I remember playing in my mum's button bag, too. Such fun - and you have found some great treasures! :0)
Stephanie said…
I used to take the most beautiful buttons and play with them - I had button families, and they would have button tea parties and button adventures. Character and size of button would dictate whether they were grandparents, parents, or children. The little round ones were usually babies and they didnt do much except roll around. funny.
Alison said…
Buttons! I still enjoy looking at my Mum's button collection, but I don't really have one of my own. My Mum's is still housed in an old shortbread tin, which used to have the slogan 'Burton's All Butter' around the outside. As a youngster, I 'amended' the slogan to 'Buttons All Buttons' with a marker pen, carefully blocking out and adding in lines as required.
MissLucy said…
Ah, grandma's button box. The memories! I got to take some home, and used them as plates in my doll's house. Just the other day I found my three year old playing with the exact same buttons, except she pretended they were doll's pancakes!
Krawuggl said…
This buttons are real beauties, I especially like the one with the wheel-flowers, very nice on a blouse. I never thought you could buy them by ebay, too. I also love to collect them, especially the old ones like flowers or with paintings, mother of pearls and glass. As a child I loved to "built" houses with matches and the flowers and people with buttons - oh, what a lovely memory, all those simple games we played in my childhood.
We still have strings on children mittens here in Germany, very useful for having only pairs insteed of a lot of singles.
yvette said…
The buttons are gorgeous.
I have my Grans button tin, which I must dig out for a little nostalgic look. I do have a button box of my own which I allowed the boys to play with, they too had mittens on strings.
Jenny said…
Beautiful buttons, what a great haul. I have always adored playing with buttons and I even let my own children play with them, they are now 17,14 and 9. I also let them play with my pincushion and all the pretty berry head pins.
alltangledup said…
i save buttons too and visit thrift shops to buy things with nice buttons, just to have the buttons. The right button really pulls it all together so it's well worth the effort to collect in advance
devinemom said…
i too have very fond memories of my mothers button collection. she would store them in egg cartins, black and white in one and colored in others. it was amazing what i did with them. and as for the mitten strings that is funny because i keep wanting to sew some on Alena's mittens because they always fall off. now how can one choke if they are behind your back and through some coat sleeves?

i love your growing collection and find much inspiration from it.

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