Simple Five Fridays #3 - Five Fun Things To Do With Buttons

Who doesn't love buttons?! You can get them just about anywhere, from the LSS, from thrift stores, or even from your own old clothes. I always stash those ones you get when you buy new clothes and they have a little envie or bag with extra buttons—love those ones!

There are a lot of things you can do with buttons (put them in rows, sew them on a layout, use them as centers of flowers) but I wanted to highlight FIVE of my favorite ways to use buttons.

1. Put brads through the holes. I first saw this idea on a layout Cindy Tobey had published in Memory Makers Magazine (on the cover) earlier this year. I’ve even seen other designers doing this same technique—just too much fun!

I made Mickey Heads on buttons with brads in the "Disney Magic" class I taught at The Scrappin' Table:

2. Create a trail. It can be a trail behind a star, from a cloud or rainbow…just make the buttons follow some kind of curve or line on the page.

On this layout I followed the rays coming out of the flowers on the paper on the right-hand side:

I created a handcut curve on the paper, followed that curve with my letters for the title, and naturally the buttons followed in a row too!

Here I used the buttons to form a trail from a star. This page is actually scraplift I did for a challenge to use a layout where they did a similar thing with buttons.

3. Scatter. Just spill the buttons over the page and see where they look the best. Then start glue dotting them where ever they fell!!

Anywhere that needed a little color, I just threw some buttons on on this page!

Here I spilled the buttons onto the page and then smooshed them really close together-I wanted it to look like an overcrowded pumpkin patch...

I dumped out these buttons to see if they matched the paper and they looked cool where they fell so I just stuck them down.

4. Decorate them. Stamp on them with stazon, ink the edges with stazon or alcohol inks or even use rubons on your buttons to give them more depth. I love SEI and American Crafts buttons best for this technique since they are flat on the front.

Here I stamped stars on some of the buttons so they would match the motif in the paper and on the epoxy stickers I used:

5. Line ‘em up. Don't just make the buttons in a row but make all the holes face the same direction as well.

On this layout I used the visual line created by the button holes to make sure they were straight:

Though the buttons are not in a row on this page, I made all the holes face the same direction to keep the look crisp and clean:

And here's a BONUS technique- Button Flowers!!

Auntie T at Scrapbook.com has these cool button flowers in her gallery and I spied them there the other day. She was so nice to allow me to post them here!! Thank you!! If you want to know how to make these, she has the instructions and I can post them--just say the word.

Hopefully I've shown you something "new" and you'll be inspired to break out the buttons and create!