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Have you ever fallen in love with a button? Because I have … many times over.

Years ago, I realized my passion for collecting beautiful buttons far outpaced my enthusiasm for finishing the kinds of knitted objects that require them.

My collection began when I inherited my Gamma’s sewing supplies. The crown jewel of that inheritance? A small baggie of buttons she’d gathered over the years. Tiny treasures each, I’m sure, with a story that I’d never fully know.

Since then, I’ve picked up a handful here, a handful there.

The story would always go something like this: I’d spot a golden bauble or an oyster shell button from across the room. In an instant, an entire fantasy life would unfold. This button would finally inspire me to make that perfect cashmere cardigan. This one would give me the courage to try steeking. I’d picture the yarn, the stitches, the finished piece, all made possible by this one little notion. So I’d cave and buy it. And then?

I’d bring it home, full of promise … only to tuck it into a plastic bag in my craft desk, for it to live out its days waiting for the project that never quite arrived.

A few years ago, I decided enough was enough. No more new buttons until I used the ones I had. Whenever temptation struck, I’d remind myself of my stash at home, still waiting to see daylight. Then I’d put the new buttons back on the shelf for another knitter to buy and to love.

This worked—until it didn’t.

One evening, at The Wandering Flock’s open studio, I overheard Geraldine say, “You have to see these buttons.” Dangerous words for a recovering button hoarder. Out came a mysterious shoebox.

I watched knitters lean in, eyes wide, little gasps all around as they uncovered treasures. By the time it was my turn, I knew I was done for.

Inside of the box were packs of Casa de Opio floral buttons. I’d never seen anything like them. Francisca, the designer, grows, picks, and carefully dries flowers from her own garden, setting each one in clear resin. Each button is one of a kind. I knew if I didn’t take them, I’d never see them again. Restraint be damned, I brought a pack home.

But I also knew these were not Ziploc buttons. They were far too beautiful to live out their days in a drawer. This time, I did something different. I used them.

It hadn’t occurred to me before this moment that buttons can be used to upgrade anything.We don’t need to limit ourselves to knitwear (and yes, I can hear the gasp that just washed across the comments section).

So I pulled out an old white summer dress from my closet. Nothing fancy, a $20 piece I’d nearly forgotten. It had sad plastic brown buttons going down the front. They did the job but also brought nothing particularly special to the table.

I held my breath as I counted. Seven buttons on the dress, seven buttons in my new pack. The buttonholes were the perfect width. It felt like I was finding Cinderella’s resin slipper. One quick swap later, my plain old dress felt special and new again.

I know the buttons will probably outlive the dress. But that’s the best part. When this garment’s time is up, the buttons can move on to the next thing, whether that’s pre-made or me-made.

Since then, I’ve been eyeing my closet a little differently. Little touches like button swaps remind me that making doesn’t always have to start from scratch. The world is your oyster shell button now. Go forth and customize!

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About The Author

Samantha Brunson is the owner of BobbleClubHouse.com, a knitting and crafting blog that chronicles the crafting community with stories from a diverse group of makers.

A self-proclaimed elderly millennial, Samantha is always looking for new ways to share her love of knitwear and crafting with the world.

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67 Comments

  • Your dress upgrade is glorious!! It reminds me of my favourite-ever mend: using the excuse of one broken button on a white shirt to replace them all with a rainbow set (one red, one orange, and so on all through the roygbiv glory) .
    It’s now one of my favourite things to wear! Big yes to using the special buttons on all kinds of garments

    • Yes! I did the same thing on a plain beige cardigan sweater – instant mood-lifter!

  • Inspired!

    • Just what I needed to read today as it reminded me of an old tin that my mother used to keep buttons in that I saved after she passed. I always had the intention just not the will to go through it and see if I could use any on the baby sweaters I knit…now I am inspired to see if they can be used on old blouses etc..thanks !

  • Love your newly styled dress, and you look beautiful! Yes, I have two button boxes, my Mother’s and her best friend’s box. I cherish them.

  • Thanks for this inspiration! I never thought of using buttons on store-bought clothes to spiff them up. I also have a button issue (refuse to admit it’s a problem), and bought 3 clear 60-drawer hardware storage cases to store them where they are somewhat visible, so I have just a few…

  • Loved this!! Yes I’m a button hoarder too. What a great thought to upgrade your wardrobe. Since moving to Florida, sweater making and wearing are pretty much down to zero. This is a brilliant idea. Thanks so much for sharing and for showing your white shirt with those gorgeous buttons.

  • Chef’s kiss… Perfection!

  • Brilliant !

  • My grandmother worked in a button stamping factory in Connecticut when she was young. She had Mason jars of buttons, bags of button off-cuts, and even some shell pieces that had the button stamps cut out (beautiful, as you could see the rough outside of the shell and the pearly inside, with a perfect ‘O’ cut from it).

    As kids, my sisters and I would treat these jars of buttons as treasure chests, each looking for the perfect button for doll clothes. Would it be the tiny daisy? The cute little Scotty dog? The shiny square with four smoothly cut holes for the needle to pass through?

    I inherited most of the button stash when she died, as my sisters were not interested in sewing. They jars sit on a sunny shelf, so that when the urge to treasure hunt comes upon me, I can open a lid and dive in!

  • Brilliant! My button stash requires a small suitcase. Off to see what I can upcycle!

  • What a well-timed post! I am cleaning out a family home and spent Saturday going through a button box I found there. As I sorted, I imagined how I might used them. Glad to read I am not alone.

  • I have “harvested” favorite buttons for years waiting for a new perfect match. I forget to survey current closet “warehouse.” Thanks for a good idea.

    • Harvesting is a great word for it! I saved buttons from some of my grandmother’s old, stained blouses that were left when she died. I used some on a shirt for myself. I also cut out hearts from good bits of a blouse to applique onto a memory quilt top. It hangs on my bedroom wall unfinished, because I’m not really so much of a hand quilter, but I still like to look at it.

  • Rejoicing in the revelation that I am not alone in my button obsession. It began with a tin box with violets on its lid that my daddy bought for me at a small country store when I was 10 years old. He was bewildered as to why I wanted it, but I knew immediately that it would become my personal button box for the buttons I had already been snipping off some of my worn out doll clothes.One of best gifts I received from a friend recently was one of the glass button jars her late mother had kept in her sewing room. It was full of beautiful buttons of all sizes,shapes,and colors and I treasure it and the memories of the dear woman who also loved to find and rescue beautiful buttons.

  • I have what was probably intended as a tackle box full of buttons sorted by color. And a pretty glass jar for special buttons. I love collecting buttons from antique and thrift stores.

    I have a sweater that I am looking for enough buttons to upgrade it, but it just occurred to me that they don’t need to match, as long as they’re the right size. I don’t have any as interesting as your flower buttons, but I can have fun sorting and choosing through what I do have. Buttons are also a good upgrade for open tote bags, if you don’t mind adding buttonholes. And who else remembers when covering a sweatshirt with buttons was a thing? A denim jacket would also work for that.

  • My grandmother would upgrade her clothes with a change of buttons! I, too, ended up with her button stash. I made button bracelets for all the women in the family – we were so tickled – put them in constant view!

  • My favorite thing in the world is a button box. They do tell a story, especially the non-button things that often turn up in the box.

  • I amd the proiud and loving owner of two gallons of buttons (literally two 1 gallon clear plastic jugs filled with buttons, with a smaller container filled with cards of vintage buttons off to the side. Sometimes i will dump one out on the bed and just play with them until a new use for them comes to mind, and i often change out the buttons on store bought clothing for something more classey than the cheap plastic one…but the originals go into the jug, just in case. Some are rescues from clothing that has worn out, some were purchased by me, some were my mom’s and some were my grandmother’s.

  • What a great story and inspired result! You seem to have struck a nerve. I had sewn a cute cotton dress for my daughter from a length of fabric off the remainder table at Jo-Ann (RIP). Even though the Lily Pulitzer-style print was delightful and my daughter looked adorable in it, the $2.99/yd. price tag kept getting in my way for some reason (I kept hearing “knock-off” in my head.) Until I discovered a beautiful silvery-white, pearl-shaped button with a somewhat higher price tag than the dress itself. It punctuated the top of the keyhole opening at the back of her neck perfectly. My pre-school daughter could have cared less, but That Button “legitimized” her already perfectly honest 100% cotton garment from knock-off to one-of-a-kind.

  • What a beautiful story to read as I drink my morning cup of coffee. My eye always goes to the detail of buttons on garments I buy, perhaps as a reminder of my time in retail where we were taught to talk about the “finishings’ to garments. The idea of one small touch
    changing the look by adding buttons has always pleased me. I collect and have jars of old buttons sitting as decoration on my shelf in my craft room, but also waiting for that perfect garment to enhance.

  • I have a small cardboard pillbox with mother of pearl buttons my grandmother cut and saved. I used a few on tiny smocked dresses years ago.

  • This is a wonderful column—delightful in its style and the magical journey it takes it all of us on! Keep discovering and writing and sharing your voice with us! Thank you!

  • Such a great idea to swap out buttons . I may look at buttons differently moving forward.

  • Great article …inspiring! Thanks .

  • Those buttons really are amazing! And they are perfect for your dress. GREAT find!

  • Oh, I feel this tale in my button loving bones! I am so envious of your bachelor buttons!! Beautiful and a delightful visual pun! Lucky you!

  • I have my mother’s and grandmother’s buttons, each in their own container. But I also have my husband’s grandmother’s buttons and button container. It is a galvanized tin pail with a lid and a handle, and it has printing on it to show what it originally contained. Five pounds of calf’s livers. From the Great Depression, to me. My favorite are the oversized coat buttons. All carefully preserved for the future. When my daughter and friends wanted to make bracelets, they could pick the most beautiful, but they went back to the boxes.

  • As a fellow button, fancy ribbon, and snap hoarder, thank you so much for this article! I just went through all my old blouses, dresses and other things that ai thought I was getting out of my closet! Now I’m rethinking my give aways and took out the ones I still love. Changing out buttons, snaps and adding some ribbon accents will give them the new feeling I wanted!

  • Thank you for the article. Buttons are great!

  • Oh THANK YOU…. I had seen buttons like these, made by someone in Chile, but forgot who….. Then a couple weeks ago a random suggestion from Amazon “you might like this” led to a book which talked about making things from resin. Ordered from interlibrary loan–OMG it is possible to make your own resin buttons–things like button molds exist! Can you see the rabbit hole yet? Or rather, can you still see the sky above my rabbit hole? So far I have resisting buying all the stuff, but I know I am going to cave in…heh heh, see what I did there? Thank you for linking me back to the origin of this quest. And yes, that dress is now perfect, and in time will give the buttons forward into a new incarnation. ENJOY!

  • Thanks for the tip of switching out the buttons! They really enhance the look of your dress.

  • I am also a button connoisseur. My ancestresses, all sewers, would say when looking at a rtw garment, “But those buttons have to go.” I to have my grand mothers buttons, some of which have eben been added to paintings. No regrets. I only wish I had the perfect ones for any given current project.
    did you know there are button making molds for both resin and clay? Another mouse hole.

  • Those buttons are beautiful, and especially on that dress! I have two sets of buttons. A practical button tin, of extra buttons from things I’ve made or things I’ve bought that came with buttons. And then I have those little plastic bags in a drawer, of buttons I thought would work on a sweater but didn’t, and those special ones I bought because I couldn’t leave them in the store. When some drawer buttons find a home on a garment (or toy, sometimes it’s a toy) that’s a happy day.

  • Wow, what a difference. You are a genius! I have used Femo clay to make my own buttons for a knit vest I made. They are special to me. I can’t even imagine making buttons with dried flowers. Thanks for sharing.

  • Those buttons! I learned that upgrade trick from the mother of a roommate a zillion years ago. She would buy a fairly inexpensive coat or blazer and put really good buttons on it. Suddenly, it looked expensive and classy! But doing this on all my clothes to use that tin of buttons I’ve been hoarding. Genius!

  • So timely! Next on my to-do list to clean up my out of control craft room is sorting through the boxes of buttons I inherited from my mother and grandmother’s stashes, plus my own. I’m going to try to only keep those buttons that are truly special or versatile and donate the rest to a wonderful creative reuse store in our area, Texas Art Asylum. I wish every community could have such a great resource for pre-loved art and craft supplies.

  • “It hadn’t occurred to me before this moment that buttons can be used to upgrade anything.”

    This is a revelation to me! Thank you for sharing your love of buttons and brilliant philosophy, Samantha.

  • Fabulous! Thanks for this upgrade reminder.

  • If only I didn’t hate to sew on buttons . . . 😉

    • . . . but all the brilliant suggestions in the article and comments may boost me over that hurdle. 🙂

  • Love this!

  • I too have a large collection of buttons, many inherited and many of my own. You can make your own resin buttons with silicone forms. Just what I need another craft project! Thanks for the inspiration.

  • Delightful! What a lovely way to start the week!

  • My college-age daughter has been dipping her fingers into sewing with projects she finds on TikTok (who knew?). This week it’s fabric chokers decorated with . . . buttons! My button box is off the shelf and buttons are strewn all over the dining room table. Most of them are older than she is, and some are older than I am. It’s a beautiful sight.

  • Love this! I am inspired to pull out my button horde and roam through my closet.

  • Where do you buy fabulous buttons? I am always looking for my sweaters. I don’t go out to shop so I look online. Any suggestions for websites?

  • I have to downgrade a sweater that has rhinestone buttons (so not me, but the color and fit of the sweater is perfect), and was bemoaning the fact that I can’t just go into JoAnns and get a new card of buttons….
    And then I realized I probably have plenty of matching black buttons in the button stash, but oh–the thought of actually using any of them!

  • I’ve been reading historical novels, and since many dresses were worn for a long time, they are always looking for new buttons or trims to update their wardrobe. Everything old is new again!

  • I love those buttons

  • Thank you. Beautiful buttons and idea. Brightened my day and gave me ideas.

  • Beautiful! You were so fortunate to find these button treasures and I commend you for not letting them linger in a drawer somewhere. Buttons are magic. This was a great reminder.

  • I have bought a few sets of buttons with the intention of putting them onto some plain button-front shirts…but haven’t gotten around to doing it yet. This inspires me to get sewing!

  • Love them and your creativity!!

  • I have two button boxes. One of them is a Whitman’s Sampler box, so whenever I had it out, my husband would race over and greedily open it, hoping for chocolate, even though I told him there was no chocolate. I have some antique baby buttons my mom gave me, but I’m sure her violet chocolate tin full of buttons was thrown out. I say save those buttons. There is literally now only one store here that sells buttons, and that’s only on one of those little racks that turns. It’s really hard to select buttons online, unless you’re getting a huge supply, because you really don’t know which ones will fit just right on a knitted sweater. I’ve been known to take the sweater into a store and tried the buttons out by slipping them through the button holes. I have also been known to take the buttons from clothing I’m getting rid of. Making them is also a good option.

  • Buttons. As you said, such a small thing, but they can be so evocative. Your dried flower buttons were such a find. I’m so glad you rightly ignored your self-imposed embargo and went for them.

  • Beautiful upgrade! I am a seamstress as well as a knitter and I tell you that picking buttons is the most time consuming part of making something. (If it has buttons) I will take days to pick out the perfect buttons for a dress or a blouse. Those buttons make that plain white dress into a statement!
    Funny story, I made a shirt dress, maybe 35 years ago. The buttons (needed 8 or 9) cost more than the material for the dress.

  • Love this reminder – thank you!

  • What a wonderful story, I also collect buttons.

  • That’s brilliant!
    I have A cookie tin full of buttons my mom and then my sister never used.
    I should go through the tin and see if I can put your inspiration to use!

  • gorgeous !

  • What a great reminder and, holy cow!!!! THOSE BUTTONS!!! I may have a small horde of my own that I am going to go examine again 😀

  • Fantastic idea!!! Refresh those buttons!!! Thanks! Beautiful!!!

  • I have buttons from my grandmother’s blouses. Some are from the 1930s and are just so pretty.

  • Oh gosh. Im also a not so secret button hoarder. I thought it was only me. I also have my Mama’s stash and a friend’s granny’s stash and anyone who handed them over. My friends granny’s button had smaller versions of some of my mom’s, which makes me think they were from my granny. I have beautiful buttons that I will only use on things for myself or daughters, that i can use again. Other stuff gets the normal buttons. So yes I do continue to buy . But so happy I’m not alone on this

  • I once found a navy blue suit on a sales rack for a ridiculous sales price. It was a good designer and excellent material but it had very sporty buttons on it. No one would by that suit with those buttons. I was in New York so I bought the suit and took the subway to the button store in the 80s near Bloomingdales. There I found lovely navy blue horn buttons that cost almost as much as the suit. I wore that suit for years and kept the buttons.

  • I have a similar affliction! I love this idea. Now I’m going to start looking at my clothes with a different eye as well! Brilliant!!

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