Green Options

Many crafters are creating new and unique ways to use vintage and collected buttons for both home decor and fun craft projects. I instantly thought of my mom when I saw these coasters. She has an enviable button stash ripe with various colors and sizes just waiting to be woven into useful coasters.

If there was such a thing as a crafty recycling Must List (What? No such thing as a crafty recycling Must List? I’m totally going to write one), vintage buttons would be at the top of that list (…and I’m going to put vintage buttons at the top when I write my list).

Not only has the entire CraftyStylish blog declared March as button month in celebration of West Coast Crafty’s new book, Button it Up, but we here at Crafting a Green World are known to love our buttons, too–check out these vintage button monogram pillows, or the felted wool weekend projects that include button-topped flowers. Flowers!

So if you finish all those up and you’re STILL craving yourself some button crafting, check out five more crafty little projects that will let you get your button on:

I found an Etsy seller putting her vintage buttons to good use.  She makes custom monogramed pillows and wall art with vintage buttons.  Peggy of Letter Perfect Designs hand sews each carefully selected button into place.

Continuing our short series on how to extend the life of your clothes. Here is a quick tutorial on reattaching a button. You can read about how to fix a hole in a side seem in Part 1.

Knowing how to reattached a button is a great skill to learn, especially because a loose button is not only inevitable, but you can find great deals at stores. I once scored a particularly lovely wool coat when it was on the sale rack, missing several of its buttons. The extra ones were still attached along the tag and by pointing out the missing buttons at the register, I was able to get another 10% off the already discounted coat, all the while thinking that the buttons were such an easy and quick fix! So onto the how-to:

A tagua nut sure has a lot of names. Like The Rain Forest Ivory or Vegetable Ivory. Other titles are Corozo (also spelled Corrozzo), Binroji Nut (Japanese), Steinnuss (German), and Coquilla Nut. A tagua nut is the fruit of a palm tree, primarily Phytelephas macrocarpa, which flourishes in tropical rain forests from Paraguay to Panama.

Natives replant palm trees for their seeds instead of logging them, which saves a bit of the rain forests. They polish the shell of the seeds and typically carve them into the shape of a button, living creature, or beautiful jewelry. Just think: an object much like a gem with all the qualities of ivory, but without harming wildlife.