Our Blog
Small delights
Posted: Thursday, March 20, 2008 by Laura
Filed under Miscellaneous
It really is the little things that brighten my day – literally the little things!
When I was small one of my favourite rainy day activities was to tip out all the buttons from my mum’s button box and sort through them. Even now I love emptying my jar of buttons over the carpet and looking at all the different colours and shapes – it’s even better when you aren’t looking for something for a specific project!
I simply love all the vintage ones that I have inherited and it fills me with fuzzy, warm nostalgia. I think every woman in my family has owned a button box – my mum, my mum’s mum, my mum’s mum’s mum and probably her mum before her too!
Sorting through buttons - what a brilliant way to beat the rainy day blues!
Peeps comments
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Lindyloo 03/20 at 09:57 PM
Wow, lovely memories or button boxes and I still have mine, great to run your fingers through the lot and find some treasures. Not fashionable now though.
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landgirl 03/23 at 07:35 PM
I love this too! My buttons are in a Charles and Di wedding tin - how out of date is that! I bet lots of us are secret button stashers.
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gill1946 03/27 at 01:45 PM
i also like buttons and lots of mine belonged to my mother AND my grandmother i am now a granny myself so i hope to pass my button tins on to my grandaughters one day. not tooo soon though!!!!!
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Bardis 03/30 at 10:51 AM
I remember my mum’s button tin - which I now have - and the hours of pleasure I got from sorting. I used our tin of vintage button to teach my three children sorting skills, counting skills etc. Now I have three grandchildren I can feel the button tin coming out again as the oldest is now 3 and ready to learning counting and sorting. And at now expense the buttons are free!
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gill1946 03/31 at 10:42 PM
I too am brining the tin out for my three year old granddaughter ..great fun for her .... lovely memories for me . I know what you mean about cost these days and also each time I want a set of buttons there always seems to be one short!!!!!! Oh, well. good exscuse for a trip to the button shop in town!!!! happy counting from GILL
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Penny 04/01 at 07:03 PM
I also love buttons and have a button tin myself which I inherited from my Mother & Grandmother. I also use to rummage throught the button tin on rainy days when I was a child and now my daughter does the same!
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gill1946 04/02 at 09:51 PM
there is something very satisfying about carrying on such a lovely tradition. I am so glad that I am not the only one to hoard buttons, I have a friend who makes jewelry from buttons but I dont really like them. It is much more fun to rummage in a lovely old tin and wonder about the garments and the people who wore them.
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janie31 04/08 at 03:10 PM
I used to love doing this too> When I recently began knitting again I raked all over through charity shops, car boot sales etc looking for bags or tins of odd buttons. I couldnt find any anywhere. one woman asked me “why on earth would someone keep old buttons!”
In the end I had to buy 5 new buttons for the project I was making. I vowed there and then to keep all my old buttons and make my own tin of them lol
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gillywilly 04/14 at 03:22 PM
My Mum’s “button tin” was actually a drawer in the base of her wooden workbox. My kids learnt to count using them and sorted them into colours too - all useful pre-school stuff.
Then quite apart from the sentimental value of all this, has anyone seen the price of buttons these days? All these old collections must be worth a heck of a lot.
I’ve seen assorted bags of buttons for sale on eBay. Now there’s an idea!
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gill1946 04/20 at 10:30 AM
when I asked “where are all the buttons” in a charity shop the assistant told me that someone keeps buying the up as fast as they come into the shop!!!!
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JaneG 04/23 at 01:17 PM
Hi everyone
I have been reading all your comments about buttons, I think it must a British tradition (button Sorting) and very enjoyable it is to, when I was a child it was a must when I was ill or could’nt go out because of bad weather to empty my Mums button tin onto the floor (oh bliss) even the noise was wonderful, then sorting them into sizes and colours and then your favourites. The really great thing is I am now 58 (don’t know how that happened) and I still love doing it.
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