What can I do with buttons?

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What can I do with buttons?
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mrsnesbitt

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1576

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 9:29 am Post subject: What can I do with buttons?
I have a box of buttons...they were mums actually. I would like to do something nice with them.....any ideas? D

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 9:58 am Post subject:

Hmmm...

I've got one idea that might tickle your fancy. Might not

How about making some cyanograms, on a cotton fabric. Get all of the best shaped buttons you've got, and keep them aside; big button holes will work particularly well.

Get some plain white cotton, and make up two solutions (we'll sort out where to get the chemicals from later- they ain't desperately hazardous, and they've been used for making Prussian Blue dye for a couple of centuries). The solutions being ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide.

Make the two up in brown glass bottles (I'll dig out quantities later if anyone is interested). Then go to a dimly lit room, and mix some of them up. Soak the cloth in it till its good and damo, and let it dry in the dark (I should think hanging in an airing cupboard would work).

Now this is the clever bit; it's the generation of an insoluble iron complex in light that turns this murky looking material into a bright blue dye. Lay the dry cloth out on a board, put the buttons on top in an arrangement you like, and take the board out into some bright sunlight. After ten minutes or so (again, I'll look up the specifics later) take it inside, remove the buttons, and run it under water till the water runs clear. You'll have white patches where the buttons were on a blue fabric.

Classic old fashioned photochemistry, a process that pre-dates black and white photography. At one time copies of building designs were produced using this stuff, hence the term 'blueprint'.

Northern_Lad

Joined: 13 Dec 2004
Posts: 14210
Location: Somewhere

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 10:03 am Post subject:

Funky idea. However,

cab wrote:

...and take the board out into some bright sunlight...

Mrs N lives in Yorkshire, remember.

helen_Mc

Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 9
Location: sheffield

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 10:07 am Post subject: buttons
hi, i love buttons, how about sewing them onto some fabric and making a cushion cover? looks brill, but is not very comfy. or pick your favourite ones and fix to a chain or thread to make a necklace/bracelet. i am always complimented on mine.

@Calli

Joined: 03 Jul 2005
Posts: 1682
Location: Galway

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 10:07 am Post subject:
WOW what a brilliant suggestion!!! And if I prepared the cloth the kids would just LOVE this!!!

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 10:10 am Post subject:

When I was a kid, my Mum's button box would keep me quiet for hours - I can still picture many of the buttons in there. In fact, I would probably just keep the box to run my fingers through and remember the past.

I have used my own button stash to make tab-top curtains and as the "quilting" in a couple of rough-and-ready, homespun quilts. You could also use them in collages or as part of a memory box, perhaps.

hils

Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 568
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 10:19 am Post subject:
a friend of mine has just used buttons for part of her degree - one thing she has done is wire them all together to form a sort of sheet and then 'moulded' it into a light shade. You could customise some plain jumpers. My friend has a plain grey knitted jumper and on one shoulder has sewn see thro and shell buttons in different length rows going down the jumper. Looks really funky.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 10:24 am Post subject:
Anyone want me to look up quantities and proper instructions? She's got an article on it in an old quilting magazine, I was reading through it this morning.

hils

Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 568
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 10:26 am Post subject:
yes please cab - I've been trying to find a kit to do this for ages with no luck.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 10:30 am Post subject:
Right ho, I'll dig it out later. I'll see if I can source the chemicals too.

boff

Joined: 23 Mar 2005
Posts: 354
Location: Still alive and kicking

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 11:17 am Post subject:

cab wrote:

At one time copies of building designs were produced using this stuff, hence the term 'blueprint'.

Cab,

You really are a mine of information.......

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 1:28 pm Post subject:

boff wrote:

cab wrote:

At one time copies of building designs were produced using this stuff, hence the term 'blueprint'.

Cab,

You really are a mine of information.......

More normally I've heard the same line with 'useless' in it somewhere

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 1:33 pm Post subject:
can you use them to make a collage, using them to denote middle of flowers or wheels and embroider round them. Something you could then frame to be able to remember your mum by. I use to have a box of buttons and beads but it was a playground craze to swap them all the time. I was about 9 I think.

sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 3:34 pm Post subject:

I'm making this idea up as I go along so it might not work-but what about making a long sort of decorative cloth streamer with buttons all over it to hang near the phone or in the kitchen, then you could button pieces of paper with notes to it- sort of an alternative notice board? If you made lots of labels with buttonholes on them out of that wipe clean tablecloth stuff you'd have write on wipe off notelets that you could unbutton and take with you if needed, shopping lists, appointments etc

otatop

Joined: 01 Jun 2005
Posts: 1425
Location: North London

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 05 4:29 pm Post subject:
When I was a child I occasionally had to stay with a Great Aunt who kept a sweet jar of assorted buttons - which I was allowed to sort and grade. It kept me busy for hours. I still have a sweet jar full of interesting buttons which kept my children quiet - perhaps if I ever have grandchildren....

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