Thursday, January 24, 2008

Ring-a-Ding-Ding

A few days ago, these colorful buttons were trapped in an antique canning jar begging to be released. (See my post a few days ago.) Sure, they had storied pasts on old cardigans that traveled the world, on button-down shirts squeezed in the back of someone's overstuffed closet, or hidden for years at the bottom of grandma's sewing box.

After scoring this jar of stories at an antique mall in Wichita Falls, I couldn't help but dump the buttons out on my parents' dining room table to sift through them and see what pretties I could make. My sister and I made stacks and glued them together with a super strong adhesive. Then I put the stacks on adjustable ring bases, upcycling the old buttons into unique vintage button rings.

There are too many rings here to keep them all for myself, so as soon as the sun comes out and the dreary weather moves out of town, I'll be outside taking some well-lit photos and adding the bling to my etsy shop. I can't wait to share these with everyone!

As a side note, when I dumped out the jar there were a few interesting goodies in there that were not buttons, including a thumbtack, some marbles, a few beads, and a few bolts. Not one to let anything go to waste, I used the thumbtacks and marbles to make some mod-looking tacks. These beauties will dress up my otherwise boring bulletin board. I made them by stacking a few buttons, much like the rings are made, and topping them off with a brightly colored marble--giving it a bit of a "handle." [See top three pretties on the right in the photo above.] The whole stack was then glued to the flat-top of the thumbtack. Voila!