Tuesday Technique - the Button Garden and how to make Button Flowers

First of all, I want to share my good news with you. I won the Craft Stamper magazine challenge 2 with my "Feather Your Nest" card, and one of the prizes is for the winning entry to be published in the magazine - woohoo!! Luckily, I kept the card lol!

Second, my dear other half has entered a photo in the Raspberry Pi competition and you can see me crafting away in the background! No, I'm not naked, it's just a skimpy summer top :-)) I really like the little Cartman peeping over his keyboard.

"The Button Garden Book Card"

OK, on to today's project. This week, Simon Says Stamp and Show...buttons! Oh, I love buttons!! I inherited the button boxes in my family, and save buttons from every old garment before it gets thrown away, but do I have enough buttons? Oh no, I still have to buy more. So this time last year, I was wandering around a craft shop and came across a packet of gorgeous mother of pearl buttons in the shape of flowers and there they have been in my button box, looking at me ever since. So when I saw the challenge was buttons, I decided to put them to use and came up with an idea to make a button garden. Of course, I also had to make a book card to house it.

"Left Inside Panel"

The sentiment stamp is from a set that came free with a magazine. They were meant to be used with card candi, but I think they work well with buttons too. The background for both inside panels was made using my new pan pastels with versamark + pan pastel stamping and a little masking (for the sun and horizon). I wanted the edges to be hazy, so smudged them all slightly after lifting the masks.

"The Button Garden"

The button garden is built into the aperture by gluing each of the button flowers in place between folds using glossy accents.

"Button flowers and leaves"

Each of the flowers and leaves in the garden is a button. Some of the buttons, like the flower-shaped mother-of-pearl buttons, are as they were bought, and others have been decorated using various techniques that I shared in an earlier tutorial. The "leaf" buttons have been decorated with scraps of patterned paper from Kaisercraft and Graphic45. The blue centres of the organza flowers started out life as cheap, plastic black buttons and have been decorated by dabbing with silver and blue alcohol inks.

"Cover of Book Card"

With such an intricate inside, I prefer my book cards to have fairly clean & simple covers. This one has a flower and sentiment stamped & heat-embossed in gold. I cheated a little since the stalk and leaves are from a different stamp set, I just covered up the flower that was originally on the stamp. A small mother-of-pearl button is added to the centre of the flower with a dab of Pinflair. The closure is made from a good length of lace coloured with pan pastels in sections to match the inside of the card.

Ingredients:

Artemio stamp sets: Hedgerow Plants, Silhouette Foliage

Candi stamp set, free with Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine

buttons!!

pan pastels & sofft tools

versamark ink pad

stampendous embossing powder, Pirate Gold

florist wire

paper-covered wire

distressinks: Victorian velvet, Bundled Sage

Tim Holtz paper stash: Vintage Shabby

Cardstock: white 160gsm & 220gsm, brown 300gsm

lace

Entered for the following challenge:
Simon Says Stamp and Show... Buttons!

Tuesday Technique - How To Make Button Flowers

1. Start off with a flower button (here I've used an organza flower with a button centre), a leaf button (anything green will do!), and a length of florist wire.

 

2. Poke the wire through the button from back to front and bend it to form a loop.

3. Poke the end of the wire back through the opposite button hole from front to back

4. Pull the wire through until tight against the front of the button.

5. Turn the button over and twist the wire around itself to lock in place at the back of the button.

6. Trim the end of the short length of wire flush with the stem using a pair of wire cutters.

7. Poke the other end of the wire through the leaf button from back to front, bend as before and poke back through the opposite button hole from front to back.

8. Tighten the wire against the front of the button as in step 4, then bend the wire into a loop and attach the end to the stem to make a leaf shape.

9. Here's some I made earlier :-) The mother-of-pearl buttons had fairly large button holes, so instead of florist wire I used paper-covered wire coloured with Bundled Sage distress ink. You can add more than one leaf to a stem as in the flower at the top right, and bend the leaves in either direction away from the stem for a little variety.