A Lesson in Determination (A Story of Grace and Hope)

This tree is beautifully decorated with charmstring buttons and it is my pleasure to show it. Here, in her own words, the creator of this lovely piece tells the amazing story of how she found buttons to be a real source of enjoyment after a personal tragedy. In reading her story, I was inspired to be ever more thankful for every gift that God has given me in this life and to appreciate the fact that even in adversity we can always find joy if we are determined to count our blessings.

I was an antique collector for many long years of large pieces of furniture and used the skills my carpenter father had taught to me to restore many things. Then an injury to my spine put an end to that grand fun and I sold 40 years of collections of everything from doorknobs to fine furniture in an estate auction.


I spent most of my time in my soft comfy chair and truly missed the "treasure hunting" of antiques.... and bringing things back to their original beauty without destroying their patina and age. I still cannot imagine that I never collected buttons !

A few years ago I lost a marvelous little enamel painting in gold one inch across that was the center of a huge brooch made in Persia hundreds of years ago. it was a gift and I was sick about it. A friend of mine was a Flea Market seller and she suggested I look for an antique button to fill the space. That one little mishap of losing that painting brought me through the door into a world that has taken me out of the cloistered life of a disabled woman into a place of fantasy, friendships and utility that has held me captive ever since.

Being on a fixed income I cannot purchase or compete with the big time button ladies , so I have found it is pleasing to me to try to make little displays of a few examples of each type of button like little works of art in their own sculptural right.  I buy 3/4" high cardboard boxes . . . They have glass lids and are filled with a thick piece of fluffy polyester. They are made for arrowhead collectors but are superb for buttons and since I cannot sew them onto cards, I simply lay them on the fluff and pin down the glass lids which hold them in place nicely.  Best of all I can see all of them and I can also rearrange them , which I enjoy whenever I get a new button to add to a certain type.


There is nothing more silly than keeping a button wrapped in bubble wrap in envelopes where no one ever sees them again after they arrive in the mail and get opened once and wrapped away again forever. I am not a compulsive "buyer".... I am a compulsive "collector" though :-)

I also was a gifted artist who has lost the ability to grasp and control a brush or a pen, or even a crayon ;-) so the buttons have given me a place to enjoy using my creativity and enjoy the creativity of others too....and I can do all that from my place here in my chair thanks to the internet and ebays button sellers.


[Attached are photos] of a tiny antique feather tree that I decorated with colorful charmstring buttons a few years ago. It took me a full 8 months because I would put on a button and knock of three others !!  Good thing I was born with a determined spirit ;-)