I have previously mentioned that we inherited a large bag of buttons from my husband's grandmother, some of which were turned into Christmas ornaments. Another few buttons were incorporated into a piece my husband stitched and framed for his mom in memory of his grandmother. I wanted to do something else with them as well, something that could be displayed year round. I hit up Pinterest for some ideas and found many links to artwork made with buttons, including a cute button elephant, a button sheep, a star (one of my favorites, of course!), word art, a heart, and flower pictures like this one and this one.
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| Monogram for my niece |
All of the buttons were sorted by color, The first thing I did was go through the hundreds of fonts I have on my computer and test out which ones I wanted to use for the different monograms. Since I was using pink buttons for my niece, I wanted something swirly and feminine for her monogram. I figured out what size frame I was going to use, and adjusted the font to fill the frame. I chose a pink scrapbook paper for the background, then printed out the monogram.
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| Little Dude's Monogram |
It was a slightly tedious process and there was no good way to place the monogram under the scrapbook paper and avoid the pencil lines. If you look VERY closely at the finished product, you can see a bit of the outline, but if you're not looking for it, it's not that noticeable. Once all the buttons were in place, I started gluing them in (hence the tedious part).
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| Our Monogram |
Each one is a little different, and I tried to personalize it to the house it would be in. For ours, I used blue and white to match our living and dining rooms, and front hall, where the piece now hangs. It's also the same font we used for our wedding invitations.
For my in-laws, I went with red since it's my MIL's favorite color, and the buttons came from her mother. And for my BIL and SIL's, I used the gold buttons on an antique looking background. All three are different and very pretty. I apologize for the pictures - it's hard to get a decent picture with glass and I was taking these just before I wrapped them up for Christmas gifts.
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| For my in-laws |
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| For my BIL and SIL |
All of the frames were purchased from the craft store. The ones for my niece and nephew were in rectangular frames. I had those done first, and then a while later, I found the square frames that included the mat (I think the opening is 8x8 in a 10x10 frame, and I cut down a 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper for each one.
The gifts were well received, and on the back of each of the frames, I put a sticker that says "In Loving Memory of Julia ____" and the dates of her birth and death.
If you are looking for other button art ideas, here's a few links. I'm pretty sure the button trees will be happening here, and perhaps the salt shaker flowers. (My friend Michele did some cute button flowers for Valentine's Day last year)
Links to Button Art Ideas:
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| http://craftandcreativity.com/blog/2013/01/12/buttontree/ |
