A while back, when I decided to make my button clock, I asked my mum if she knew where the tin of Nanna’s buttons were.
Nanna was my great-grandmother – and I remember playing with this tin full of buttons when I was a little girl. See, when Nanna died, she left pretty much everything to my mum – my parents have a house-full of gorgeous antique furniture to show for it.
And the buttons.
Mum couldn’t find the tin at the time, but we found a smaller sewing tin in the old Singer, which had enough buttons to make my clock.
Then, the other week, while cleaning out my old bedroom and other cupboards in the house (my grandmother – mum’s mum and Nanna’s daughter – is moving in with us) mum finally found the tin!
It is full of button-treasure… so I wanted to photograph them and share them with you all. There are lots more that I haven’t included here, but this is most of the really interesting ones.
I wonder how many years it took her to amass this collection. Where did all these buttons come from?
I’ll never know… but I’ll enjoy looking at them – and hopefully giving them a new life – during the years to come.
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Fabulous Jess – I have a jar of my grans buttons too . I wonder how they collected so many too. I should set them up in colours to photograph like you – it is a great way to view them. Have fun
You’re so lucky, there are some real beauties in that tin! Have fun creating.
I have a similar collection from my Nanna. I believe a lot of them were cut off old clothing, as that generation were the ultimate recyclers. You have inspired me to use some old picture frames from my other Nanna to mount my buttons in! Thank you so much.
Felicity, what a great idea! They would look fab collected like this, sewn onto some linen or cotton, and mounted 🙂
what a gorgeous collection & we have a collection somewhere too. I do love buttons – when I was younger I had a jumper decorated with multicoloured buttons, which I adored 🙂