Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Button, button, whose got the button ???


We all have dirty little secrets right? Well I'm coming out of the closet with mine ... well one of mine anyway.

It's my button collection. A source of rolling eyes from my kids, raised eyebrows from my partner when I buy more on e-bay, and a source of laughter behind my back from some friends ... though there is one friend who 'fessed up and said she collected them too
... So you see, your dirty little secret might inspire others to tell you theirs ...


I'm not a particularly focused person at the best of times, so you can imagine my collection isn't catalogued (much!) or in any particular order, and I am not an obsessive type so I actually don't even know alot about buttons on button collecting. I just like the things.

It all started when I had a huge jar of them from various sources and I kept adding to it. I actually used to bring out the jar and a tray when the kids were sick in bed and we played all kinds of games with them (I am good at imagination games ... thus a writer, but not an obsessive one!). (So you see kids ... it could be seen to be your fault I have that collection you roll your eyes at.)

Some people take it all so seriously and have the most amazing historical or themed collections ... mine just sit in jars - one is even colour coded which impresses me no end! I have recently started buying vintage buttons still on their old cardboard backings and they sit in a gorgeous treasure box I got as a birthday present.

What do you do with them? Well like any collection ... I suspect it's just about having them ... not much more than that really ... I found a source of sites if you're actually interested in button collecting ... there is obviously alot more to it than I originally thought ... but I'd rather spend my time on e-bay ...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You? Not obsessive huh! We've seen you be totally OTT about journals ha ha! :-)

Rodney Olsen said...

I like comedian Steven Wright's comment about collecting.

"I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world... Perhaps you've seen it."

Anji said...

I remember when my great granny died we had her tin of buttons and spent hours playing with them. When clothes get old if they have interesting buttons I snip them off and keep them.

We've collected 10,000 vintage postcards which we are now selling on ebay

Judi W. said...

Oh my gosh, do you realize that you could take high quality photos of the buttons (on the cards) and sell them as collage sheets? It's amazing what people will buy! I love buttons too.

Joy-Joy said...

does ur collection already include a button made from coconut shell? if no, i can send u a couple of them.