My pathetic button collection

Step in to any craft room (or space) in the world, and you're likely to see some kind of button collection. Piled in jars, sorted nicely in tiny drawers, strung along strings in garland-like fashion - they are there. They permeate just about every crafter's supply collection.

Every crafter ... except me.

I have just about the most pathetic button "collection" of any crafter/sewer I know. And I use the word collection lightly. Quite frankly, my "collection" consists of a handful of plain buttons in a snack-sized plastic bag. They are the extras from random clothes I've had. They aren't colorful or vintage or special in any real way.

I actually never really got the whole button thing. I just didn't understand why people go so nuts over them and horde them in giant stashes. I guess they can be inexpensive, easy to store and fun to paw through, but still ... I was always a little too practical for all that.

That was until I saw Leslie's collection. Whoooooboy. It's extensive. It's full of vintage goodies. It's color-sorted into dozens of tiny drawers and mounted on the wall. It's a rainbow of delightful little circles (and other shapes!) of fun. And when I saw it, and started pawing through it, I began to understand the draw of these little decorative closures. I also can't help but fall in love with the random glimpses Diane has given of her collection. Looking in to the collections of two friends whom I admire so much really made me start to see what all the button fuss is all about.

I still haven't gotten the urge to get lost in Ebay searches, and I don't feel like my craft room is incomplete without jars of buttons on the shelves, but I have started exploring the button aisle of the fabric store a little bit. On a recent fabric store excursion, I got a little carried away. Back to the afford-ability factor, I kept saying, "ooooh! Only $1.20! Ooooh! Only $.90!" Before I knew it, I had more than $10 of "oooh, only-s" in my basket. (see the picture above) I don't even sew much with buttons, but I love looking at these little cards - they are fantastic inspiration.

And while I don't see myself turning into a huge button fanatic, I have at least started to understand the appeal.


(the "cool" buttons scattered throughout the post are Leslie's ... not mine ... sigh.)