Saturday, December 20, 2008

Button Trees

The kids and I spent this afternoon working on a fun craft originally shared by our friends, Ali & Simon. Button Christmas trees! When I was gathering supplies for this, my mom unearthed this wonderful box from my grandma's collection. Filled to the brim with old buttons of every kind. I love the old Alka-Seltzer bottle containing decorative buttons and even a couple of fancy clip on earrings!

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Both kids really had fun choosing their buttons and placing them Just So.

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When the kids took a break to get some wiggles out, one of the cats granted me with his presence. Not sure what he thought of it all, he would rather my hands were petting him, I'm sure.

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I think they are each very indicative of our personalities.

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Emma's is colorful, bright, and playful. She sorted through the button box, looking specifically for unusual buttons or fun shapes and chose contrasting pin colors.

Mine clearly displays my OCD tendencies and desire for an elegance that life with two children rarely achieves. Every space is filled, single color used, and a carefully crafted randomness of sizes.

And George's.... well, George's is blue. With blue pins. Lots of blue pins. Just the way he likes it!

6 comments:

Beth said...

Oh these are super cute!! Did you just pin the ribbons on too?? There are boxes and boxes of buttons from my grandmother and great grandmother some where at my parent's house. I would love to do this to show them off! Thanks for the inspiration!

Meg said...

Yup! We just placed buttons at the beginning and end of the ribbons to pin them in place.

There are a couple of buttons (and jingle bells) that had loops on the back, instead of holes. So we ran pieces of ribbon through the loops and pinned those to the tree. The kitten at the top of Emma's tree is an example.

Be sure to post yours! The kids are still coming back to put more buttons on, I sense this will be an ongoing project. (Maybe even add more buttons next year!)

Sharon said...

Man they are cool! I would have nightmares about finding pins on the floor afterwards. Maybe I should be braver.

Liz McCoy said...

this is great!!! love the colors george's is GORGEOUS!!! love the celebrate ribbon on it too.

Looks like a fun family time :)

Anonymous said...

I've never seen this craft before - very appealing! I want to try it - next year - a bit late for this year.

Reminds me of making rainsticks.

CC said...

Those are so cool! Love em!