Making Buttons

Hi Everyone 

I’ve been making buttons over the last week or so. 

                   

I’m using a great system called Efcolor. This technique involves using a small, simple metal stove, fired with tea lights and using a coloured resin powder. I’ve used some coconut shell buttons as my base (there are lots of other options) and have been playing with colours. My practice buttons are varied in quality and I’m finding ways of developing interesting surface patterns with the coloured powders. I’m also finding ways of making different finishes. The finish seems to be determined by the temperature generated by the little stove. For a high shine/smooth finish the tea lights need to be fresh and generating maximum heat. The slightly lower temperatures of a multi used set (3 per set) of tea lights seems to give less of a shine to the melted resin powders and more of a Matt finish. Both ends of the smooth/non smooth spectrum can work - it’s all about experimenting and deciding which finish is desired.

I’m hoping to use a few buttons to embellish some of my Wet Felting projects - you can read about the recent flower project here. I’ve more experiments planned and will share my results here on the blog, over the next few weeks.

Thanks for calling in today.