Its Button Time

For years I've wanted a button machine. In college my senior project was to design the identity and merchandise for 3 bands. This meant everything: logos, album covers, t-shirts, stickers, press kits, photography, and you guessed it—buttons! I really thought that was my chance to justify buying a button machine, but at the last minute our design department purchased one since so many students wanted button design to be part of their projects.

Years later, as I participate in more craft shows, I figured this was finally my chance to get one! Now I can make promotional buttons for TriSERIFtops, and sneak in a few nerdy typography ones as well.

Before starting to make my own (well, to be honest I already started experimenting :) ), I wanted to see the variety of creative buttons available on Etsy. I curated the "Buttons!" treasury above, and here are a few of my favorites from the group...

Nesting Doll buttons by xoazuree

Loving Pastels buttons by SoleDeVita

Silhouette Birds buttons by PipingHotPapers

Coffee Bear Latte Art buttons by coffeepurse

Tuesday Tutorial: Button Hair Pins

This week's tutorial, Button Hair Pins, is a simple project you can do in under and hour - perfect if you are looking for a quick way to spruce up your accessories wardrobe with a bit of a vintage feel for autumn.

And even better—you probably have all of these materials in your house already!

I am also doing a FREE GIVEAWAY this week! Everyone who comments on this post before 12:00 am, ET on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 will be entered to win a set of 5 of the button hair pins pictured above. Winner will be announced here and on the Designosaurus Facebook fan page on Friday.

Materials:

Buttons

Bobby pins or hair clips

Glue gun with glue sticks

Needle & thread

Instructions:

1. Glue buttons together. You'll want 2–3 buttons per clip, glue them together starting with the largest button on the bottom, going to the smallest on top. Use only a dab of glue between each and press together for a few seconds, make sure the holes of the button are aligned so your needle will fit through later.

2. Glue buttons to your hair pins. Use only a dab of glue on the button and press against the top of your hair clip for a few seconds. Make sure the holes of the button are on either side of the hair pin so later you can fit your needle through the holes, and around the hair pin.

3. Sew your buttons to the hair clip. The glue helps keep the buttons in place while you sew them to the hair pin, if the glue pops off a bit while sewing don't worry, the thread will hold them. You might need to push the needle through some glue in the button holes, but if you are using a sharp needle this shouldn't be a problem. Sew 4–6 times to make sure your buttons are secure.

Now your new hair pins are ready to wear!

Tuesday Tutorial: Eco-friendly Autumn Wreath

I’ll admit, I’m a little early with my autumn excitement, but the moment it gets even a little cool I automatically shift into gear wearing sweaters and drinking hot apple cider!

If you can’t wait to start getting your place looking festive for autumn, what better way to start than a welcoming wreath at the door (and an eco-friendly one at that)!

These flowers can take a long time if you decide to make a lot of them, so it’s the perfect project to slowly chip away at while winding down at night or something. With any luck you’ll be done before autumn ends!

Materials:

Wreath form (not pictured), or branches to make your own

Old magazines

Scissors

Needle & thread

Buttons

Glue gun with glue sticks

Ribbon (optional)

Instructions:

1. Choose a color theme and pull those pages from your magazines. I chose pretty traditional warm and neutral autumn colors, but you have endless possibilities! You can choose to be inspired by fashion trends for fall, warm cream colors that can transition from autumn to winter, etc.

2. Cut circles in varying sizes out of the pages you pulled. My circles ranged 1”–4” in diameter. Experiment with different edges on your circles; try things like points and flower petal shapes. Each circle will make one flower, the number you need depends on how much of your wreath you want covered. I used over 50 to really cover most of the wreath, but you can choose to use them more sparingly.

3. Pinch and fold the center of each circle to form a flower—there is no right or wrong way to do this, just trial and error until you get the shapes you want.

4. Sew a button to the center of each flower. This is where you can fiddle with the shape to be sure the flower stays how you want it. Remember this is paper not fabric, so it will start to get fragile if you poke too many holes, you really only need to sew the button 2–4 times.

5. Glue your flowers to the wreath form. Use a small amount of glue on the back of each flower. You can cover the entire wreath, spread the flowers sparingly throughout, or do a more asymmetric layout like I did.

6. Tie a ribbon to the top of your wreath for hanging. This is optional; you can always just hang the wreath itself right on a nail or hook.

So have fun and start crafting! As always, post any questions in the comments, along with links to photos if you do the project yourself!

Coffee Sleeve Experiment

So a week or so ago I wanted to start a quick project that was just for me, something small that I could overwork and just have fun with. The result: this coffee sleeve. I got very little done at first, until last night when I couldn't sleep so I stayed up to finish it! Old buttons and flea market fabric helped to achieve the purposeful messy and eclectic look.