Remember the buttons I found on the side of the road? Yeah, well, I figured out what I’m going to do with (some of) them!

We’re clearly still in the draft and experiment stage of the proceedings here, but I’m pretty sure this is going to be glorious.

Things I feel obliged to note (because I, for some reason, assume that any time I show anyone anything when it’s not yet completely done that they will immediately spring up to point out all the things I should fix. And so feel as though I must, in turn, mention all those yet to be fixed bits before they have a chance to bring them up. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out where that comes from):

• I’m using an old frame from the back of the closet. If I were buying stuff for this project, I’d probably have gotten something a bit bigger and not in silver…but I like the idea of just using what I have on hand (and if a different frame follows me home from the thrift shop some day, I may rearrange). The glass is gone, but I actually think this will look super cool without glass.
• That little metal coke tab looking thing on the lower right won’t show when this is done.
• I’m wrapping the backing of the frame with a scrap of linen. The plan is to iron it even flatter then wrap it quite firmly around the backer board of the frame. I may look for some cork board or a piece of thin, ferrous metal to go on top of the board and under the fabric. This bit is somewhat in flux as I dig around in the garage/attic/basement/side of the road for supplies.
• I’m going to use magnetic pushpins to hold the buttons in place. Hence considering adding either cork board or something to which magnets will stick under the fabric. Again, this bit is a bit up in the air and will depend on what supplies and ideas the craft project fairies leave in my path over the next few days.
• The rainbow isn’t perfect, some colors are more strongly represented than others, and the button cards come in all different sizes and levels of disrepair. I am intensely aware that it is not straight edge perfect and even and aligned to a perfect grid across the whole thing. And that’s kinda the point! This is very much meant to be a casual project using found/scavenged materials, and embracing the chaos (rather that breaking out the calipers and the paper cutter and the fancy rulers) is the point of the exercise.

However…with all that said…oh I love it and it makes me happy! I think the biggest downside is I’m going to have to make myself Not Eat The Buttons every single time I see it. Because oh holy wow do they look like candy when the sun shines through them!

What do you think, would you hang something like that in your house? Any other ideas for things to do with buttons on cards that lets you show them off instead of consigning them to the back of the closet? Because they’re just too pretty to hide away!