Tag Archives: buttons

mushroom hunter fox

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He is ready for the fall fungi season.

He already has found one and it’s in his pocket.

More on the cute little buttons at the end of this post.

And I know you are wondering what is in his bag.

And about the buttons- I received an email from a company called Lots Of Buttons offering me some free buttons to check out their site. Well, hurray! I’m all for free stuff! I looked at the buttons, starting at the tiniest- which is in the 1/4″ range. I am always on the look-out for good doll appropriate buttons. I picked out 4 varieties- the ones on the vest are little horn buttons and perfect for a fox vest. Unfortunately, because they are a natural material, they seem to be a bit more fragile than plastic and one of the first 4 I picked out was cracked. Oh well. I like them enough that I can imagine shopping there again. The prices seem good and they have a limited but interesting selection of small buttons. I should also mention though- they needed to substitute one of my selections and it took about 4 weeks to get them. All in all though, I am happy to have another resource for affordable and cute buttons.

dorset buttons

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We had great fun at my doll club yesterday- we made dorset buttons.

The pink one is mine- slightly off centered. The multi-colored wool one was made by Jean who was sitting next to me.

We used this tutorial by the amazing Sister Diane!

I thought I had some of these type of handmade buttons in my collection but I couldn’t find any. Of course that doesn’t mean I don’t have them somewhere! I did find these buttons though-

The white button on the top right-hand side is the closest. It is made on a ring. The other button look like they were crocheted and they were all made on those forms in the middle of the pic. The top form looks like it is made of bone. The two lower ones are wood. Here are some close-ups-

If you are interested in making some yourself, I just googled “dorset buttons” to try to get some kind of history and discovered many tutorials.

buttons

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buttons

We had an afternoon of buttons at doll club yesterday. I learned so much! One thing I learned was about old celluloid button and how they deteriorate and damage other buttons in their vicinity. I saw examples of what a deteriorating button looks like. I came home and went through all my buttons again. I have now separated out the bad buttons and will decide if I can bring myself to just throw them away. An afternoon of button talk couldn’t have come at a better time for me- since I’d just organized all of mine.

Thanks for all the advise about having my quilt done- I stopped at a local quilt shop yesterday and got the names of several people to call. I’m excited about it!

I actually spent a little time on a doll today. I want to finish my December, before changing to Christmas present mode, dolls. There are a few cut out and even 3 that are stuffed and ready to finish. It would be so easy to leave them and get started on something new but then they haunt me. I know I will feel better if I finish them up.

*Update* photos of those BAD buttons–

the celluloids-

buttons1

I hope this is clear enough. I will also post them to flickr, where you can look at them very big. Do you see all the little cracks? They get bigger and bigger and then the buttons crumble.

the metals-

buttons2

Funny thing is, I was looking for this kind of green corrosion when I was making this robot.

I understand that both of these types of deterioration are “contagious” and affected buttons should be removed from the rest of your collection.