Showing posts with label buttons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label buttons. Show all posts

Friday, 20 May 2011

Flowers that don't make me sneeze

I've been off work for 4 days with some weird sort of sinus/ headaches/ migraines.  Everytime I think I'm ok my little prisms come back in the corner of my left eye, I lose sight in the eye, headaches and nausea ensue.  Unfortunately some kick ass meds my doc wanted to give me reacted with something else I'm on so I'm relying on Co-Codamol to kick the butt of my headaches.  It's not been fun.  However around 1pm today I'd had 3 clear waking hours without my eyesight going funny.  I decided to celebrate by making a mess and trying my hand at some craftyness.

I'm in LOVE with fabric flowers - I have horrendous hayfever (I'm a sickly bunny) and I prefer fake/ fabric flowers to the real thing in the house.  These beauties had me salivating and reaching for my glue gun:

 
via: http://www.msawesome.com/blog
via: http://www.etsy.com/people/Snazziedrawers

via: http://diyfashion.about.com


As I said in my blog post yesterday I'm pretty rubbish at following any sort of instructions so most of the tutorials on the internet are useless for me.  So I decided I was just going to try trial and error - folding, twisting, turning, puckering the material that I have.

A while ago I found a large bag of fabric squares on the market which were once samples.  I picked them up for £3 and then waited and waited for inspiration to hit me:
I was thinking that perhaps I'd eventually use them for something patchworky then today I sat there with my squares; twisting, turning, puckering and created this:
Adding a little brassy button from my collection.  I kind of liked this but it involved sewing (to pucker the leaves) and I was getting everything in a mess and the headache was threatening to come back.  So I gave this a go:
Much much easier - folding and sticking - sticking and folding.  Minimal amount of sewing.
Now - I have boxes of buttons and can you believe that I made all these flowers but can't find ONE button I feel suits them?:


So if I'm feeling perkier tomorrow it's a hunt for buttons on Deptford Market I believe.  I do think I have another box of buttons hidden somewhere in binbagaggeddon (the name for our 'study') so I'll hunt for them before I go and buy more (maybe).

Anyway - honest opinions? I know the photos are my typical hipstamatic and not very clear but do they look ok?  Do you think I could get away with wearing one and not looking like a complete idiot?
ps: While I was waiting for the photos to upload I was stumbling and came across this here:
Thought it was appropriate for the way we organise ourselves here!

Edit:  It's now just past midnight and I couldn't sleep so I went hunting for my buttons that I KNEW I had somewhere (why I'm trying to talk myself out of buying more buttons tomorrow I have NO idea!).  I thought I'd add them to the flowers and take more crappy photos with my iphone:




Sunday, 1 May 2011

we're off to button moon ...

... we followed Mr Spoon, Button Moooooo oooon ....
Sorry a bit of 1980s nostalgia there - for some reason it's been going through my head for the past half an hour so I took it as a hint and decided to post the first 'Upcycled Inspiration' blog for Our Second-Hand Life. 
I have a ridiculous collection of buttons and I've tried to make various things from them but I am so cack-handed that trying to do any sort of sewing, jewellery making or anything ends up being pretty naff and embarrassing.  Regardless I enjoy looking at what other people can create with buttons.  The first post on this can be seen here and it looks like I was inspired by the same children's tv programme as I was here! I'm so unoriginal.

Firstly I wanted to show you RBK Creations


How beautiful are these bouquets?  If I got married again I'd want the black feather and red button one - how pretty is that?  Well - maybe not pretty in the conventional sense but pretty for this red and black obsessive here :)
I also found some cool tutorials to help if you wanted to make your own button bouquets - I might make one just to see if I can:
A How-To Guide to Making Button Bouquets
Off-Beat Bride Tutorial

Ok - so what else can I do with my buttons?
I really want to carry on with this but I appear to have a migraine coming ... so normal service will resume in a bit.