A while ago, I made a cute pair of earrings from some rather yummy green vintage buttons, and they were snapped up rather quickly (hurrah!). I wanted a pair for myself, so I was thrilled when I found not one, not two, but four of the buttons in my stash over the weekend – whee! The downside is that now the buttons have been made into earrings, they have become unruly. To the point where I am considering starting a correctional facility for deliquent jewellery. I already have a plastic storage box of jewellery which refuses to be photographed correctly, and is doomed to stay there FOREVER (or until I finally get myself organised enough to attend a craft fair *hollow laughter*). Anyways, here are the little so and sos:

Of course, some buttons are simply in a class of their own, and know how to behave in polite society:

I have also been on the lookout for buttons to fit into some new ring blanks I’ve bought, and I managed to find just the right one: 

I do love those buttons – I must try to get hold of some more.

Well, in the last week or so, we all sent out our parcels, and people have been posting pics of what they sent and received. So without further ado, here are the fantastic goodies I received from my wonderful swap partner, Handmade and Heritage (I never know if we’re ‘allowed’ to use real names *shifty*).

So, my parcel of goodies arrived in the week, and I must confess, it gladdens my heart when people use my user name instead of my real name:

That’s obviously not my address. Although sometimes I wish it was.

And inside the envelope….am I building the tension nicely, or did you all scroll down already to see what I got?

After a brief fondle of the parcels, I opened them to reveal……oh my goodness!

I love it! The colours are fab, the buttons are sooo cute, and the stitching is ace. There’s also purty backing paper at the back, which I didn’t take a photo of – you can see it on H&H’s blog. But wait, there’s more:

 

I think it turned out rather well, seeing as my ‘magic’ white ink pen disappeared and I was forced to be creative. The photo in the ‘lens’ is of me and my Dad taken on holiday in Llandudno. The photo was a bit faded, even after scanning in and trying to restore it via the scanner options. Still, it worked out OK and Dad was pleased with it, which is the main thing.

Note to fellow photographers: Yes, I know that this card is not technically accurate. I am using a bit of the old artistic license here.

I have dabbled with making fabric covered buttons before, using a button tool, which involves a level of manual dexterity that I clearly don’t possess. So results have been, um, varied. That didn’t stop me from buying one of those tools at the weekend – I am stubborn determined to master it.

So when I found a tutorial on Craft blog that showed how to make fabric covered buttons without using the button tool, I was keen to try it out. The tutorial uses shank buttons, but as I knew I wanted to make fabric covered button earrings, I needed to find some old buttons which were flat. I have quite a lot to choose from:

Eventually I found two smallish buttons which matched in size – one was quite scratched, so couldn’t really be used anyway.

Aside from button(s), you will also need:
Fabric (don’t choose anything too silky or slippy – see more about this later)
Small piece of felt
Scissors, thread, a needle
Fabric glue
Findings (depending on what you will use the fabric covered buttons for – earring posts, brooch back etc.) and strong glue to attach

1. Cut your fabric into a circle measuring twice the diameter of your chosen button. If you are rubbish at cutting out circles, use something to draw round – I use this handy dandy orange doohicky (that’s probably not its official brand name):

I used a piece of recycled/upcycled/repurposed neck tie for this – it has a nice sheen to it, and the pattern is pretty on both sides.

I chose the ‘right side’ and drew my circles, then cut them out.

 If you like, you can check the size of the circles with the buttons. And if you are making two fabric buttons, you can make them look like slightly creepy eyes. This step is optional.

3. Make sure you have the fabric wrong side up, and place the button inside the fabric circle. Pull the threads carefully to gather the fabric round the button.

You can move the button about inside the fabric to make sure it is centred. Note: if you are making more than one fabric covered button, make sure that the buttons are the same way up inside the fabric. If they are not, you may end up with one flat button and one slightly domed button. [/voice of experience]

4. When you are happy that the button is centred, secure the gathered fabric by knotting the threads together. Snip off any excess thread.

 5. Cut out a small circle* of felt, big enough to cover the gathered fabric at the back of the button.

 *or your interpretation of a circle – let’s be creative here, shall we?

6. Glue the felt circle in place. You might need to press it down for a while to make sure that it covers the gathers.

7.Once the glue has dried, glue the findings onto the buttons.

The finished earrings!

I have to say, although I love the idea of using repurposed fabric from neck ties, the slipperiness of the fabric made it difficult to work with, both in this tutorial and in the button tool. I think using some sort of interfacing might help, but it would add extra thickness to the buttons (which might not be a bad thing). The bonus of using fabric from neck ties is that you get some interfacing fabric in it, so maybe that’s something to try. I might report back on that one.

As for the button tool, I *can* get it to work with less flimsy fabrics – for example, felt.

 And once you have your felt covered button, you can decorate it…with more buttons!

If you use my tutorial, I would love to see what you make – please post your links in the comments section below. Have (buttony) fun!

So, spurred on by that success, I signed up for a cupcake decoration class with a friend. We spent three happy hours learning how to make cake decorations, including a bear and a pig, from fondant icing. I somehow got the proportions wrong for my bear, so he is a little…cuddly. Hence the nickname, Sumo Bear:

Thimbles, fasteners, buttons (yay!) and even some dressmakers chalk, which is worn nice and smooth:

Pins in an old cigarette case:

And finally, an arty shot of some old cotton reels which, for the sake of the poor pun in the title, I am referring to as bobbins:

When I tried oxidizing the silver earrings last year, I used a tupperware container. I’ve seen tutorials mentioning ziplock bags, so I thought I’d try that this time. I read online that copper-plated items might not oxidise well, so I ‘cleaned’ the metal bits of the earrings with 70% alcohol (from the first aid box, not the drinks cabinet). Acetone is recommended for this, but I didn’t have any, as I buy acetone-free nail varnish remover (to go with the numerous bottles of nail varnish I own but never use).

So I hard-boiled a couple of eggs, and put them into the bag. I then bashed merry heck out of the eggs with my hand. It was a bit warm, but great for stress relief. Actually, this would probably work even better if you draw a face of someone you don’t like on the eggs first. *makes a note for next time*

 Note: If you are trying to lose weight, you can open the bag at this point, and take a good deep breath of the eggy fumes. I bet you won’t feel like eating much after that. Nice.

Then I added the earrings to the bag:

So I left the earrings in the bag, and tried not to keep looking at them. Occasionally I would poke the eggs a bit to release more of the fumes. After an hour or two, I could see a colour change, but it wasn’t quite dark enough. So I left the earrings in the bag overnight, and this is how they turned out:

The earring wires have worked really well, but the headpin wire and bead caps are a bit patchier. 

That could be because I didn’t clean them with the alcohol properly. I guess I could try oxidising the individual components first then making them into jewellery. Or I could just buy them ready oxidised. But where’s the fun in that?

 1. To create something for the May Moodboard challenge.The blog team does a monthly ‘moodboard’ challenge, choosing a colour combination to inspire us to create. Of course, I like looking at the pretty colours, but inspiration never hits at the right moment. The colour for May is green. Yummy, luscious green.

2. I don’t have any WIPs (works in progress) to finish, so my second goal is to make at least one item from the bead stash shown below: