Button, button...

     This morning's surfing, resulting from my daily detour from my email inbox, took me to a scrap booking organizational site. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, I recently gutted my studio and started fresh with massive attempts at organization . Though the studio is looking pretty good, I still cruise different venues for even more cute or efficient ideas.  When I came upon this link's spice rack http://www.scrapbooksetc.com/crafts/gift-ideas/cute-button-projects/?page=15 organization for buttons, by color no less, something in me rebelled...
     The idea of being able to grab a collection of green buttons when needed makes time-saving sense-but what about Grandma' button box?  When my Grandma Wilson passed away years ago, my aunt gave me Grandma's button box-"You are the sewer in the family". The first few years I just ran my hands through that colorful old tin full of plastic and ivory, brass and bone, pearl and wood. I just couldn't bring myself to actually use those buttons. What if I put them on something I later decided to sell or gift to someone? They would be gone!

Grandma's Button Box-old cookie tin.

 

Grandma strung sets of buttons snipped off yard sale clothes.

 

Then I came up with a way to use them and keep them! I made a queen size Christmas tree quilt, surrounded with gift packages, and an angel on top of the tree. The oldest and prettiest of Grandma's buttons became the decorations on my quilt tree.    

The next time I dipped into my precious stash was to use Grandma's stork scissors and thimble on a wall hanging as ornamentation to my poem printed on fabric.  And if you have viewed the last couple months of my blog you will have seen Grandma's buttons on the fabric boxes I make, and as the perfect final touch on my trapunto!
      So, I still treasure her buttons, joyously unorganized.  I am finally using them. Maybe someday I will 'use them up'... without restricting their existence in jars, by color.