Making Tartan Buttons

Hi Everyone
A very 'winters' scene today. A good covering of snow. I had hoped all visible snow would be gone for another year. I was looking forward to our daffodils - just peaking through.


The current 'mini' project is making buttons from egg boxes. Here's a quick look at the original project



If you look back to last Tuesday the details are there. I've made the actual base bead and given them a single coat of Golden Titan Buff. I used a small egg box and managed to get about 30 buttons of various sizes.



I created most of the buttons by simply cutting them out free hand with scissors although I do have a Sizzix die and tried that too. Both techniques worked fine but I wanted a greater range of sizes so I tended to cut them out.










After paining I decided to hang the buttons on toothpicks to allow drying.
I made the holes in the buttons from a simple hand punch (other than the dies which have holes)


They probably need another before decorating. The idea behind the project was to review the process and make embellishments for my own work. My aim is to make some and decorate them just like the picture. This is what attracted me to the project in the first place. However, I would like to use others, decorated in tartan as an addition to my latest painting. My idea is to make some flowers from the finished tartan buttons. I'm hopeful.
I was quite impressed with how many buttons I got from the one box, a larger box would be a better approach to make batches. The project is quite time consuming. It's the decorating which takes the time, especially the base coat. I think I spent about 3 hours in total. I liked the project and the end result - so far is great. The texture of the egg box gives a lovely feel to the buttons, they are strong and quite tactile and not to be overlooked, they are 'upcycled free packaging' - great ! To make my tartan buttons, Im inspired by some other buttons. I've seen these great tartan buttons made from polymer clay. You can buy them from Folksy. I do 'have a go' with polymer clay but Im not good enough (yet !) to make these buttons. I would like to. For this project, however, I will be painting the buttons.








My tartan palette is bright. - here is a quick peak at the progress. I hope my buttons will reflect elements of these images.




That's it for today.

Bye for now.