Button Bouquet

At the start of the year I signed up to a 'Craft it Forward' idea on Facebook. I get a surprise at some point during the year (not had it yet!) made by a friend - could be a foodie thing or a sewing thing or anything crafty really, and, as my pay it forward part, I'm making something for four other friends at some point in the year. I'm just starting to get slightly worried about this, the end of the year seems to be creeping up on me far too fast. I'm finding it hard to believe we're now into October.

I've made and given one thing and I have another one well underway, but I haven't done a thing about the other two yet. I'm hoping that writing about it here is going to help kickstart me into some more action!

The made and given one was a 'Button Bouquet'. It was all done before I started blogging but I also made one for myself so I've taken a photo of that for you.

There are lots of tutorials out there for button flowers, but they're really straightforward. Just jewellery wire threaded through the buttons and coiled around at the back of the buttons to secure them. I curled the wire stems with these to help 'arrange' them effectively, and I stuck them into a lump of plasticine at the bottom of the vase to keep them roughly in place - otherwise I found they did have a tendency to tip out easily.

I'm not mad keen on artificial flowers usually but what's not to like about a bright, colourful, everlasting button bouquet?

Back tomorrow, Sally.