Button It

I’m totally obsessed with buttons. One of our favourite weekend sans enfant activities is to mooch around the junk shops of places like Hay-on-Wye, and Beardy loses the will to live while I spend hours fossicking through baskets of buttons looking for inspiration, ideas and things to spend his money on. One of my favourites is an old five-hole jobbie I found in the soil on my allotment a few years ago, so I made a mould and cast it in silver… Cracked bakelite buttons don’t look much in the flesh, but turn them into metal, and they are quite something – it’s the texture that does it for me. And of course all those holes are just begging for something sparkly…

I think it’s rings I like to make best of all, and buttons are just perfect for that, a little bit of whimsy on your finger goes a long, long way. I’ve been mixing silver with copper, making shanks from hammered silver, woven wire (well, my mum did that bit, years of plaiting horses’ manes and tails certainly came in useful!) and plain copper with a silky satin finish.

I’ve made some copper buttons too, so will be busy over the next week turning them into something wearable too – as well as some wonderful vintage mother-of-pearl buttons which are begging to become bracelets and pendants.

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