a weekend of buttons and necklaces

March 9, 2009 at 10:23 am | Posted in button it up, chatty, I love to make things..., oregon, projects to do | 3 Comments

I absolutely love wearing necklaces, though they’ve been forced off my heavy rotation lately (since Pearl loves it when I wear necklaces, too, but for a totally different and very predatory reason). But I got to wear one on Friday when Michaela took me, Diane, Jennifer and Lee out to dinner to celebrate Button It Up… and it was so nice to feel like an accessorized grown-up for a couple of hours! Of course when we got home, Pearl’s eyes lit right up and the octopus had to have an early bedtime, but it was a good run.

Then the five of us had a little craft night — well, they all knitted and crocheted pretty things, and I just sorted buttons, which is something I love to do. Two book events coming up that I can only use sew-through buttons for gave me the chance to empty a couple of gallon bags of stash, Etsy and eBay buttons onto trays and endlessly sort the shank style bits and pieces out to a different tray while we talked and listened to music. So relaxing.

The rest of the weekend was nice too. Aside from taxes, losing an hour, and getting a brisk shower of hail on Sunday, that is!

On the plus side: seeing friends, sorting buttons, a lovely dinner, a waffle the next morning, a trip to Knittn Kitten, two basketball games to watch, an ACC championship to celebrate, lots of time to play with Pearl, a quick visit to Crafty Wonderland, homemade soup and cornbread, and a long walk (on the non-hailing day, thankfully).

And I got to do one of my favorite tutorials for CraftStylish so far: button link necklaces three ways. I love craft projects you can truly make your own with your favorite colors or materials or whatever you like, and this is one of those. It’s ultra-simple to make and the real pop is in what buttons you mix in… I did three versions, including one using my black-and-white shrink art buttons from last week, just to show how easy it is to switch it up. My favorite at the moment is the reds, I just love those pretty little ones in a row.

Anyway, it’s up over here if you want to check it out, and I would love to see yours if you make one! Or three.

p.s. CraftStylish has just put together an ongoing archive of all the March button projects, and there are some really awesome tutorials up so far… I especially love this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one. And it’s only the 9th!