Thursday, July 09, 2009

Button, button....


















Monsoon season has arrived a bit early!  Every evening, the clouds roll in and Tucson gets to experience amazing skies and cool breezes.  It really is a fabulous sight!  The desert gets a big drink and celebrates the season with color.  Everything is green!  

While it is raining, Mia and I find ourselves searching for things to do inside.  Yesterday we went on the hunt for vintage buttons with plans to make jewelry.  I wanted to go thrifting for the buttons but Mia insisted that we go to the "buffalo store".  The "buffalo store" is actually Copper Country Antiques.  They have a giant buffalo with wings on their roof.  Mia loves it!  I decided to give in and made the trip.  Luckily it didn't take us long to find a little jar of the cutest vintage buttons.  We made our way home and started our little project.  

I took photos in order to share as a tutorial.  If you have never made jewelry out of buttons, I really recommend it!  It is so much fun and quite easy to do with your little ones.  


















Gather up those old buttons.  Try and find ones that are flat on the back making them easy to attach to a jewelry blank.  The buttons with metal loops can be used to jazz up a bobby pin.  Just slide the button on and there you go!  Makes a unique hair accessory.


















Gather a variety of ring blanks, pin blanks, and bobby pins.  The blanks can be found at your local craft shop.  















Heat up your hot glue gun.  















Start making your jewelry.  Mia's job was to design the jewelry while I used the hot glue gun to attach them to the blanks.  We actually played around with these for a really long time.  














It was a lot of fun creating different styles! 














We were lucky enough to find pairs that could be made into matching rings!  These were our favorite :)

5 comments:

the rikrak studio said...

wonderful! and i love the matching ones for you sweeties! :)

Lisa at lil fish studios said...

Oooh, great little treasures! What a fun project and the matching rings are so great. It never once occurred to me to slide a button on a bobby pin...I'm going to try that tomorrow. Thanks!

Ursula said...

When I talked to Mia on the phone today I asked what colors she used to make her jewelry and she named every color that I see here! What a cute project for you to do with her. I especially love the matching ones!

Chakra Pennywhistle said...

Thanks ladies :)

About the bobby pins. They are so much fun:) There might be a trick to getting them to stay still. Depending on the button loop size, they can be a little unsteady. Perhaps a couple of drops of glue to make them stay in place? Haven't tried yet but noticed that some can be very loose.

alexkeller said...

i'm so jealous that you went to the 'buffalo store.' i've been trying to stay away...
and what a fabulous idea for vintage buttons! i traded with another Etsian and have a few wonderful buttons that i shall now turn into bobby pins.