Why Rub Two Sticks Together If You Have A Match?

We make things too hard on ourselves, sometimes! Or maybe YOU don't, but I do.

It was in the late 1990s when I first started to learn a few things from my aunt about buttons. Back then, if she showed me a silver lustered button, I would immediately think it was metal. I was amazed that she could just look into a box of buttons and say that "metal" one was black glass.

One of the things she did for me was to give me a list of items that I would need for working with buttons. She recommended a little zip pouch to carry my tools, a lighted magnifier, an awl, a graphite pencil with an eraser, and some other things. One was a button measure.

Now, a decade later, I just bought my first button measure. After struggling all this time trying to get  accurate dimensions on buttons by using a wooden ruler, I just spent a whopping $5.00 to buy the official NBS (National Button Society) measure. This thing is worth at least two or three times what I paid!

Now, my analogy is a little silly, I guess. But suppose you wanted to build a campfire at your tent site and you began rubbing sticks together to produce a spark to ignite some dry grass or paper when you had matches available? You just lost a precious commodity: time!  That is how foolish I have been. Button measures are within anyone's budget, and I've stumbled along for a decade without one. Oh, well, confession is good for the soul.

Identity Crisis

This is a delightful button, don't you agree? If you could hold it in your hand you would see a fire in its opal-like belly.  You would look it over and maybe call it a butterfly (as I did).

"What a beautiful butterfly," I thought, "or maybe not!"  Where are its antennae?  What about its wings not being a distinct pair? What about its body? Maybe it is stylized, the product of artistic license. Hmmmmm.

It's times like that that I wish my neighbor knew about buttons and maybe I would invite her over for a cup of coffee and an opinion.  Now, that would be convenient!

All I can tell you for sure about this one is that it is beautiful and people who know buttons and looked at this picture online are not sure about its genus and species -- or if it represents a living creature at all.

Oh, and there is one other thing: the filigree "wing" at the top of the picture is damaged. See the tiny ends that are disconnected?  I didn't even notice that until someone pointed it out. Once I heard about the flaw, another look brought the damaged area immediately into view. The trained eye always amazes me.

What I like best about this button is imagining my aunt holding it in her hand. She had a particular way of holding something that she wanted to study. And she had a certain joyful look on her face when she studied something beautiful.  Whether it was a hooked rug, a quilt, a piece of glassware, a painting, a polished stone, a button, or any other thing that could be felt, seen, heard, or smelled -- if it was beautiful -- she appreciated it immensely.

I think she didn't really have to know all about it to enjoy it. If it was beautiful, it had a place in her heart. That is the way I feel about this -- uh, butterfly (?)

Searching for Treasure in Arizona

Today a friend bought this lovely silver and turquoise button and it reminded me of my Aunt's particular attraction to things Southwestern. In New Mexico and Arizona, she searched for treasures in Native American Art, which she especially loved. For example, on a shelf in my livingroom I have a beautiful paperweight filled with sand from the painted desert. My aunt and uncle bought two of them on a trip to the Southwest. My cousin has one, and I have the other. But there was more! In fact, anyone who knew my aunt  was probably familiar with at least some of the silver and turquoise pieces she and my uncle enjoyed:  lovely belt buckles, rings, bracelets, and (of course) buttons. In her last days before the cancer took its final toll, she was still wearing one of those beautiful rings.

A few years ago she told me about a special turquoise and silver button that she acquired on a trip to Arizona. The button was a uniqe piece made especially for her by an artisan there. She was particularly enamored of his work and frequented his shop several times, observing his work. On those visits, she spoke to him rather extensively. As was her habit, she asked him if he had ever made a button and he told her that he hadn't. She asked him if he would, and so he did. It was, as I said, one of a kind. She purchased several examples of his work, but it is my understanding that he made a gift of that special button to her. When he presented it to her, he said, "Someday, somebody will offer you hundreds for this piece." She thought he was joshing her.

The day came, at a National that she attended, that someone saw the button pinned to her jacket and asked her where she got it. She told the story and that it was a one-of-a-kind button. The person offered her money in increasing increments and when the bid hit $500, she refused it saying it was not for sale at any price. Why? It was a unique work of art made exclusively for her. I have no clue as to what it looks like. I have never seen it, but am convinced that if we find it, we will KNOW. And I believe that once again it will not be available "at any price"! It is my sense that this is a significant piece of art and that it will continue to to hold a treasured place in the hearts of her children.

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 ;-)

The Simple Things of Life

There are many advantages to being a poor kid growing up on a farm. We didn't have much money in the 1940's, but we enjoyed life immensely in those days before television came to northern Maine. I think the greatest benefit of all was that we learned to appreciate the simple things of life. And that included buttons.

Buttons were always much more than the little devices that kept our coats closed against the winter's chill. Indeed, the buttons from our Grandmother's attic had many important functions.

For example, we had a wonderful time playing "Button, Button".  Grandparents, cousins, siblings -- anybody in the house could play that simple game. Remember it? Somebody had to leave the room while the rest of us decided where to hide the button. Once the deed was done, we'd say, "you can come in now." The player would walk about the room saying, "Button, button, where is the button?"  Those who were in on the secret would give clues like "you are getting colder", "you are warm", "getting warmer", and so forth until the button was found. Oh, that was GREAT entertainment on a winter evening while the wood fire crackled in the cast iron stove and the corn popped over the fire.

Another great button pastime was to get a big darning needle, some yarn or string, and Grammie's sewing basket. What great pleasure we found in simply stringing and restringing coat buttons of every size, shape, and color. I wonder how many times she heard, "Can we play with your buttons?" (We didn't know the appropriate use of 'may' and 'can'; same with 'good' and 'well', come to think of it!)

I think the thing that fascinated us the most was looking at the zillion buttons in a huge trunk in Grammie's attic and watching her sort and card her treasures as she prepared for her monthly button club meetings. Some of the buttons you see me offer these days were once in that trunk in her attic. And when I handle them, even today, I can almost hear the clattering of the buttons, sense that "antiquey" smell, and see the glow from the single light bulb near her trunk. Whenever I see her handwriting on the occasional button card, my thoughts travel back in time. The memories are so very precious.

You know, I have to say I'm sorry that so few children in this generation enjoy the simple things of life the way we did. Aren't you?

Creativity

It was John Keats who wrote, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." 

Take a look at this button. Many years ago, someone created this marvelous piece of art from a lowly seashell, some dye, and some bits of steel. And I am enjoying it tonight. Amazing!

As I look at this beautiful button, it is a tiny thing and not all that significant in the grand scheme of things. Yet, it causes me to marvel once again at our Creator, who designed and executed such a varied and beautiful universe.

It caused me tonight to stop and meditate on the fact that we have been given the capacity to recognize beauty. Indeed, we appreciate the colors, shapes, and sounds all around us. We are awestruck by the crashing waves on the sea, the uniqe detail of every, single snowflake, the aroma of a rose, the taste of chocolate, and the vastness of the milky way.

And beyond our ability to enjoy the beauty around us, we also have the desire within ourselves to be creative! We imagine, we design, we plan, we build, we work, we decorate, we arrange. We certainly are creative beings!

Maybe you wonder why all of that is important to me. It is because I truly believe our creativity is one of the evidences that we human beings really were made in the image of God, just as the Bible says.

Ah! This gorgeous button reminded me of the wonder of it all.

Of Butter Prints and Potter's Sheds

All my life I've said, "farm life is wonderful for children." I know that because my childhood in the 1940s and 1950s was spent on our little 50-acre farm. One of my duties (and joys) was to help make the butter. We used an old barrel churn that was an antique, even then. Once the cream was churned into butter and "gathered" into a soft lump, we drained off the buttermilk and gave the fresh butter to Mom. She was expert at taking the newly churned butter to wash it, work it, press it into the wooden butter print, and wrap the resulting block of butter in fresh parchment. It was a work of art and a labor of love.

Some prints were just plain, hinged wood, but others had a design on the base. When soft butter was pressed into such a print, the design was imprinted into the block of butter. I loved to look at the "fancy" butter that resulted. (Thing is, before TV and video games, we had to make our own entertainment.) Though it was hard work, making butter was fun!

Why did I tell you that? I told you about butter prints so you can understand how my aunt got her "cow button" from a potter's shed. It went like this:

One day my aunt and uncle decided to stop at a potter's shed. They watched with fascination as the potter deftly shaped his clay. As the piece took shape, my aunt's mind was turning just as surely as the potter's wheel.  Just as fast, too. And her thoughts naturally turned to buttons. "Do you ever make buttons?" she asked the potter. He responded that he didn't. But being the persistent button lover that she was, she asked, "would you?" Well, the potter would, he guessed. He didn't exactly know how to design one.

That was just a minor problem to "Auntie", who found a butter print with a cow carved into the base. She thought that would be a perfect mold for a button. Problem solved! She gave the butter print to the potter and he produced his very first button. Resourceful button hunter, wasn't she!