I have a couple friends who have given me their grandmother’s button collections. I also have the tin that was my own grandmother’s. Some of the buttons in there are beautiful, and I wonder when I look through them about the clothes they must have been on. Many of them are strung on thread or wire to keep a set of like buttons together.
That generation knew the meaning of reusing things. My grandmother had a jar in her kitchen where she saved twist ties from bags. It is a habit I’ve picked up from her and I find myself unable to throw them away, but instead stash them in a mug that lives in a kitchen drawer.
These wires wrapped button pendants came from those old tins of buttons. (Instructions here: http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2014/05/wire-wrapping-tutorial). Some day I will take the time to sort them, have tins for each color, or pull out the fancy ones. But for now, when I have a project that needs buttons, I still take the time to sift through them all. Small plain shirt buttons, rhinestone encrusted jet black buttons, random snaps or hooks and eyes, they each have a story, I just don’t know what the story is.
alookatthelittlethings 
Reblogged this on Thing-A-Day Lives.
Charming idea. And I have my grandmother’s button tin… 😉
Those button bins are like tiny treasure chests.