Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?

 

Courtesy Button Lovers, Pinterest

Buttons!

What would we do without them?

We sew them on to keep things closed,

or to keep things open.

We add them to our clothing for fashion. 

We use them in our home decorations.

We give them to children to play with, or to learn basic skills.

We make them into jewelry.

Oh what a wonderful thing -

Buttons!

In Walt Disney’s animated movie 

‘Alice in Wonderland’

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum ask if Alice wants to play “Button, Button”?

We dye them to all the colors of the rainbow.

We make them out of plastic, horn, bone, twigs, metal, and precious gems.

Buttons made from coconuts 

Humans have been in love with buttons for a very long time.

. E stepp N.

In fact, for a very long time!

The oldest button found so far is one made of shell from 7000 BCE in Pakistan.

Feel free to count those zeroes again!

Archeologists found more discs with holes drilled in them made from ivory, clay, stone and bone. These dated back to 4000 - 5000 BCE.

Recyclart

In ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ 

Willy references the game “button, button”.

Being the crafty person I am, I became curious about what others were creating with their buttons, besides utilitarian uses?

Handmade by Taylor Friese

Is it anything I would like to do? Is it anything I think I would like to teach at my local Senior Center?

Courtesy Carol Cahill, Pinterest

Well, I found a plethora of button projects! Let’s look at just a few.

The first 2 fall into the category of 

‘Useful objects’

Courtesy Leslie Price, Pinterest

Courtesy Crafts and Creativity 

What cute ideas to put in your sewing/craft area! They are both so simple I’m not even going to give directions.

In season 2 of ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’ Dee Dee says “Button, button, who’s got the button?” before pressing a red button to take off in a hovercraft.

Many of the button crafts I have to show you don’t even have to know how to sew.

Here’s another one that only needs glue:

Courtesy StylesatLife

You could make this with anyone’s color scheme and give as a charming gift.

Wouldn’t it be great filled with jelly beans?

Another no-sew project:

I found many postings of this on Pinterest; no idea of original idea.

I would add a backing cut slightly smaller than the finished coaster. You could use stiffened fabric, leather scraps, thin cork sheets…

The title of the Twilight Zone episode ‘Button, Button’ is a reference to the childhood game.

Next I have a few simple ornaments:

Dana; Sara Srogi; Pinterest

Glue some popsicle sticks together for the base. (Do this on wax paper to prevent messes on your table!) Then glue on different sizes of buttons. Add thread or ribbon for a hanger.

A simple craft for young ones to do also.

firefliesandmudpies.com

There is a tutorial for this, but really you just need buttons, glue, ribbon for hanging and a stiffened piece of felt for the base. 

Budget idea: use poster board or shirt insert cardboard for the base instead.

Charlotte Prow; Pinterest 

You will need buttons, glue, scraps of felt and an old plaid scarf and twine to make the snowman ornament.

Are you in love with buttons yet?

Courtesy Carol Cahill; Pinterest

In ‘Lost in Space’ Season 2, Episode ‘The Curse of Cousin Smith’ Major West refers to the ‘old childhood game of button, button, who has the button

I found so many wonderful

 ideas of how to use buttons in your card making. Let’s start with Christmas cards. Here are a wfe :

Ellen Roberts 

Canadian Living

Scrapbook.com

Next are a few general cards wit:

Wordpress.com

Talita Rodrigues Nunes

H.Skelly for Splitcoaststampers Community; Pinterest

…and 2 more:

KEA

Archzine.net

There are many different styles of button flowers out there.

These are just a couple:

The Shabby Tree

Becky Crockett

Here is a diagram to help you make the above button flowers:

Julie Fitzgerald posted this on Pinterest 

Crochet, anyone?

Love Crochet 

Buttons and felt seem to go 

together so well:

chocolatecupcake 

Not On The High Street

Instructables

You could easily make these into pins or magnets.

In ‘Little Men’ by Louisa May Alcott (published 1871) the Plumfield children reference playing ‘Button, button, who’s got the button?’

So what is this game/nursery rhyme I keepreferring to?to?

It’s a children’s game that has existed well before 1871 (see above).

to play:

Children stand in a circle with 1 in the center. They all hold out their hands, palms up and next to each other. The ‘it’ player has a button. ‘It’ goes around the circle and pretends to put the button in each child’s hands. ‘It does drop it into one child’s hands, but everyone pretends they have it. Then the first child guesses who might have the button.

“Button, button, who has the button? Is it ____?”

You go around the circle with each child having a turn, until the real button holder is guessed. The child who guesses correctly is the new ‘it’.

Kathy Spitsen, Pinterest

Let’s get fashionable with our buttons!

Pinterest

If you can do jump rings you could use this same idea and make a necklace.

Here’s a project that takes embroidery thread and beads:

Patti Bishop posted this on Pinterest

Is your button not quite the right color?

Here’s a clever trick to custom paint wood buttons:

Threads magazine

I love this next fashion statement:

The credits for this are in Cyrillic. Sorry.

I have got to try this one.

Hot glue gun and Aleene’s Tacky glue here I come!

Okay blogspot has gone haywire on me and is doing really weird things with punctuation

and spacing GAAAhhhhhh

Time to stop!

Til next time

inkspired

I keep trying to fix the problem but have found no solution yet that works. I am so sorry for the messy look on this. It’s not how I typed it, truly!

😢 😭 😡

Altered Art Paper Dolls

 Welcome!

Lindaedkinswyatt.blogspot.com

Paper dolls…

Altered Art…

Collage embellishments…

Oh my!

Found on Pinterest, needle & threadLLC

All 3 things are right up my alley.

I remember my first paper dolls when I was 3-4 years old. I continued to play with them until I had to give them up when I was 12, as none of my friends played with anything so ‘babyish’.

Found on Pinterest, no credit

It was a sad day.

Skip ahead a decade or so.

I had moved numerous times. I was in college, and discovered theater. Then I took a costume class. We had to make costume mock-ups for play characters. At the time, you really did not want to see what my human figures looked like hand drawn. What to do?

I’m so sorry, the only info on this is webarchive.org.I know it is from a blog.

 If you know who, please let me know so proper credit is given.

Paper dolls! Of course!
They were wonderful outlines and shapes and continued to ‘help’ me out in future classes. Yay!

No info, found on Pinterest

Ariel - PMQ for 2; Pinterest

To understand Altered Art Paper Dolls we need to understand Altered Art.

What is it?

“Altered Art is a transformation or alteration of ordinary, everyday objects into decorative pieces using a wide variety of different techniques and materials.”

- Google

“Altered Art is a broad term…describes a way of recycling and giving new life to all sorts of commonplace and functional (or perhaps even useless) items for ornamental purposes.”

- www.altered-art.net

“Altered Art is the way to change everyday objects into something really special.”

- www.card-making-magic.com

Jeannordquist.com

Altered Art paper dolls?

You take a paper doll and you have creative play. There are no rules. Want to cut it apart and rearrange parts? Mix it up between a couple different dolls?

Okay!

“There are no limits to what you can do!”

- aisling.net

You can find more of my work on Pinterest: K.Kloberdans

Sometimes I create, and then think how I can use it.

Sometimes I have a need - perhaps a holiday that needs decorating, but I am sadly short of decorative items. Or there’s an empty space on the wall that needs something special.

Scrapbook.com

These reasons will dictate my color choices, how ‘quirky’ I want to get with my altered art, and size limits.

Good grief girlie

Did you have a favorite paper doll that is now all bent up and scotch taped? Here is a clever idea to keep the nostalgia by framing the clothes:

Paper doll Manila

But don’t be afraid to cut up those torn paper dolls and clothes to make something new.

Here we have the base doll, but the artist adds this lovely handkerchief dress.

Marietta.ru

Next we have the bases with altered dresses. They have been added to clothespin wood doll forms.

little pink studio

Artfulplay blogger uses lots of parts and pieces to create her dolls:

Artfulplay.blogspot.com

The next few altered paper dolls I used the base forms and then cut up some recycled catalogs, magazines and junk paper to create the finished dolls:

K.Kloberdans on Pinterest

I also like to make the different parts movable using a very small paper hole punch and brads.

K.Kloberdans, Pinterest

Here are some antique paper doll pieces you can play around with first, if cutting up the original doll is too scary.

You can find these sorts of vintage parts/pieces all over the internet.

Etsy also sells a nice variety of downloadable images from sellers.

The graphic Fairy

And here are some finished dolls:

Tera Medrano

Karen Mallory

‘Isadora’, JuliaPeculiar 

Are you starting to get those creative juices flowing yet?

Thinking about what materials to gather?

Here are some ideas for you:

Small silk flowers

Bits of lace

Buttons

Hardware like nails, screws

Wood baby blocks

Clothespins

Recycled catalogs & magazines

Stash of ephemera (paper)

Candy wrappers

Paper clips

Embroidery floss

Brass charms & beads

Playing cards

Broken toy parts

The list is only limited by your imagination!

Unknown. Pinterest 

Lisa Taft

Lastly, let me mention your photo copier is your friend. Photocopy your paper dolls first if you need to. Then play around with assemblage items and cut up copied doll pieces. When you find a pleasing arrangement, you can then choose between the cut out pieces or the actual doll.

By using photocopied dolls you can use them again and again. Store the originals in a safe place for further fun!

ekduncan.com, Pinterest 

craft-addiction.blogspot.com

I have had so much fun writing and researching about Altered Paper Dolls, I may just have to go create some more!

I hope you have been inspired also! 

‘Til next time,

inkspired

K.Kloberdans, Pinterest

Inkspiredmusings.blogspot.com

Judge Judy’s Pals

Altered paper doll series by inkspired