Buttons galore, and Felted tote - Part I

There are two things I've wanted to do for quite a while now - one, somehow straighten the photo diplay on the shelves in our den and two, craft with buttons. So, decided to kill 2 birds, as they say... ;) Danielle so generously shared her button supply with me earlier in the year - she gave me this entire enormous jar of assorted buttons - so awesome!!! I love buttons and this jar o' buttons was especially fun since it contains every size and shape you could possibly imagine.

Several months ago, I started wondering more about button crafts - searched around online some to see what people have done with them before and found a post (have no idea where anymore) where someone made a sort of bulletin board decorated with buttons. I thought it was interesting, but had no use for a bulletin board really.

Then, it hit me a while later while looking at the hodge podge of picture frames jumbled and crammed all together on the little built-in bookcase of our den. I felt like I had to get the pics out of the frames and displayed another way - there were just too many frames all stuck together that it was starting to hurt my brain to pass by that area. (Ok, so I'm feeling a tad dramatic about it at this point...) Anyway, I loved that the photos were in the den - it makes me happy to have all the photos out in our main hang-out area, but it was just too dang messy, the frame clutter distracting from the photos themselves.

So, back to where it hit me... well, once I realized that I wanted the pics out of the frames, I remembered the buttony bulletin boards and started gathering supplies. I bought the el-cheapo set of cookie sheets (3 different sizes in one pack for like $3.99), some cement glue from the craft section and some magnets also in the craft section - oh, plus a roll of contact paper and some spray paint (everything in one trip to walmart).

I actually bought one can of primer spray paint and one of color, since the paint was going on metal cookie sheets. I wasn't very happy with the color selection in the spray paint section or the choice in contact paper, but all these things were really just the supporting actors to the pretty buttons, so I tried not to care as much.

The actual assembly was easy peasy. After the spray paint is dry, just mark and cut a piece of contact paper to go in the cookie sheet center, then glue buttons all around the edge of the sheet, .. and presto, on to the really fun part - arranging the pics! Then, just made sure to have enough magnets topped with buttons to hold the photo collage securely in place, cleaned off the shelf and set up shop.

I really love having all my favorite photos arranged this way! It's obviously still very busy, but now I feel like it draws your attention into the photos and makes it more fun to look at them. There's still one more sheet to go, but that means I also have to clean off the most messy, cluttery shelf of them all, plus print off some more recent photos to display, so that could be a little further down the road - we'll see.

Some things I did differently for the second sheet after learning from the mistakes of the first - put the tinest buttons on the bottom edge so that the buttons don't get in the way of the display sitting on the shelf. The sheet on the top shelf is actually propped up a bit on a couple decks of cards right now, since I overlooked this potential problem. Also, the buttons adhere best with a dab of cement glue on both surfaces; i.e., on the back of the button and on the edge of the sheet where the button will be placed.


Now, the last photo deserves some chatter. First of all, you won't be able to help noticing my rockin' new knitting bag. How cool is that? Sara Leah made it for my birthday and I love it very much - it housed this latest knitting project over our recent trip to the left coast, so is already rather well-traveled. It's really the perfect knitting bag with plenty of room for tons of yarn and plenty of pockets for misc other supplies. I actually used it as my carry-all bag for the trip, complete with yarn, wallet, maps and a pullover.

Also, in the pic is the beginning of what will eventually be a felted tote bag - yippee! The bottom and a smidge of the sides were done on the plane to and fro SF. I'm about halfway finished at this point and can't wait to try my hand at felting - wahoo!!! I will of course be devastated if it doesn't go well after all the knitting with all the gorgeous yarn, but surely that won't happen. ;-) This yarn was purchased last summer in a really cool shop in Atlanta called Knitch. Once through last year's holiday crafting season, it took me this long to clear out some other projects and get set up for this one. So, I'll keep posting the progress for this one - would love to be ready to felt in another month or so - here's hoping. :)