A brief history of the button ...

According to Jill Gorski ( Warman's Buttons Field Guide.), the humble button has occupied a special place in history and was originally made in sets that were attached and removed from a garment each time it was worn. Such buttons were crafted by artisans who belonged to a Guild of Buttonmakers - these craft guilds were established in the mid 13th Century - and buttons really were tiny works of art. They were marked and records of each craftsmans work were kept. These artisans were commissioned by the aristocracy to create magnificent buttons to adorn their clothes and show off their wealth. Of course the poor old commoner had to make do with far less glam buttons made of wood, cloth and bone. This was in part because of the cost factor but also because a royal decree dictated what the 'lower classes' could or could not wear. Leap forward to the 17th and 18th Centuries and buttons were being made form all sorts of materials and England and France were the leaders of the button making industry. Artisans of all kinds began to make buttons in their chosen mediums so you would find a potter who made ceramic buttons or a weaver who made woven buttons. This was apparently quite a lucrative sideline! The Industrial Revolution saw buttons being created in larger quantities and at far less cost than ever before and in a sense led to the demise of the artisan crafted button. Now there is a plethora of buttons on the market but I reckon the best ones are the vintage ones you find in op shops. I love the way they are presented ...

Sometimes they come on cards ...

or in little bags ...

or in jars ...

 and if you are lucky, big bundles ...

There are big buttons ..

and shiny buttons ...

buttons of glass ...

and craftily covered buttons ...

or lovely piles of colourful buttons ...

Best of all, there are RED buttons ...

and most bestest of all, there are red BIRDIE buttons!

Squeal! I love buttons!

Whatchya been doin'?

So, that was January huh? It simply zoomed by in this household with a whirl of fun, friends, arrivals and parties! What a great start to the year. Mind you there hasn't been a great deal of actual work done (as in the kind that brings home the bacon!) but the salt mines will wait I guess! Our daughter Ellen, turned 21 and we had a party to celebrate - it was terrific fun and had a dress-up theme of fairy-tales. We had been deliberating over table decorations for ages when one day Ellie eye-spied these beauties over at Grrl+dog. Armed with this fab inspiration we sallied forth to create a whole bunch of 'shrooms'. in keeping with our fairytale theme. First we made the tops from cardboard and layered them up with pages from old books. Then they were given a wash of paint.

Dots were added for that true shroomy effect ...

The stalks were made from rolled up paper and more book pages. We rediscovered the joys of Mod-Podge! And now for the assemblage - we knew we needed them to be stable as there was going to be some rollicking party games afoot and we didn't want the shrooms to go flying .... Rather than try to stick them down, we opted to create a board with pegs that the stalks could slip over - stable and easy to dis-assemble! You can see the work in progress in the background ...

 To complete them, we made glass "mushrooms" and perched a gnome on top - we used some blu-tac on the day just as a little added security - hey these are some of my favourite woodland critters afterall!

 We really had a lovely rainbow of shrooms and as a finishing touch we placed vintage woodland critters amongst the mushroom forest.

I don't have a pic yet of these in situ but when I do, I will show you. So big thanks to Denise for the inspiration and the words of encouragement and a big congrats to Ellen for turning 21!

 So, - what have you been up to over January ...?

She likes me - she really likes me!

Hey guess what? I scored a little blog lovin', that's what! My Vintage Vow has been kind enough (and cool enough - hee hee!) to give me this little award.

Thank you so much! Like Gracie Hart in Miss Congeniality I am brushing up on my acceptance speech and practicing my wave!

Casting Mania

Since my cuttlefish casting adventure meant that I had all the necessary casting equipment to hand, I decided to make some new silicone molds and cast some new jewellery components.

I used up the last of the compound I had which is good because it was approaching the end of its after-the-bottle-is-open shelf-life. I had varying degrees of success this time around - some casts were brilliant and others - well not quite up to scratch! I was particularly pleased though with how this one turned out ...

It has a rather Victorian look about it.

At this point, it has had a minor tidy up - removing overflow from the edges. Notice how rough and bubbly it is? That is because the mold is new - a few more pours will "cure" it further but hopefully it will retain some of that roughness because I really like it!

Here it is with a patina and an eye added!

It looks old and crusty - just the way I had hoped it would look!  I love to work with found objects but I have come to realise that many of the things I like to work with repeatedly are, like embroidered doileys, quickly becoming a finite resource! So, I have decided to cast some things from objects I find and hence be able to use them more than once in my work. I think it will simply add another dimension to the work - and besides it will be heaps of fun! Here is the first of my "Faux Found Objects"

This has been cast from a very sweet little key that is earmarked for use with a layered pendant I created the other week. It is a great size and shape so I have recreated it using reclaimed pewter. I have cast it with a flat back which will give it plenty of applications. I guess nothing could ever replace the truly found object but I think these reproductions will have their own aesthetic - on their own or combined with originals.At the very least, it is a more useful object than the beer mug it used to be!

Here's looking at ya -  ha ha ha - get it? there is an eye - and it's lookin' at you ..?  Well I thought it was frickin' hilarious but you may feel it only warrants a wry chuckle of amusement - either at my comedic delusions or the pun - I'm not fussed - at least I will have made you smile!

CastAways.

I wasn't really a castaway - although I could probably handle being castaway on this beach ...

I was in fact visiting my friend Audrey and we decided to try our hand at cuttlefish casting. A bracing walk along this beautiful beach yielded some fabulous cuttlefish "bones" and we had a lovely time collecting them and then carving them. We had varying degrees of success but given that neither of us knew much about it, we did ok. We learned a lot from our mistakes! We did have the good fortune to catch up with Fred Peters who very generously shared some hints and tips and thus encouraged I decided to have another go at home today. First I had to hunt up some cuttlefish. Luckily (since there is not a beach within cooee of where I live), I had some that I collected with friends some time ago, on the Yorke Peninsula.

Next they need to be trimmed and shaped ...

I found the carving the trickiest part - you have to flip your brain around and remember that the negative space you create becomes the positive space of the object you cast. Arrgghh!

I carved a prettty simple (and rather odd looking!) fish. The cuttlefish is bound to a backing board (or another piece of cuttlefish) and the molten material is poured in through that vent that you can see at the top of the carving.

And here she is! I told you she was a bit funny looking! I am garnering a better understanding of the process so I remain hopeful that future attempts are just gonna get better and better! I think it might be a goodly while before I am up to this standard though ...

Leafy Sea Dragon by Fred Peters

I live in hope ...

21st Birthday preparations underway!

Given that my daughters birthday is just three and a half weeks away it is a good thing that we finally ot organised and made invitations to the party! The party is having a dress-up theme - fairytales so Ellen designed the invite around one of her favourite fairytale characters - Red Riding Hood.

Firstly she designed and made a papercut which is really great but no way was she going to cut 50 of them! So, she bravely handed it over to her Ma and I had a bit of a play in Photoshop ...

Ta dah!!!

I had a lot of fun messing about with different colours and in the end this is what we settled on. We have had the image printed off as photos which have been attached to cards ...

All that remains is to write in them and get them in the post! Hoorah! I am starting to feel excited about the party now and trying to come up with some neat table decos .... All ideas gratefully received!

Work in Progress

Really it has just been far too hot here to think, let alone undertake any creative work! Nonetheless, this morning my fingers were itching to be busy so I sat at my bench and collected a few bits and pieces together ...

I didn't have a plan - I just thought it might be fun to practice some cold connections and join some stuff together. In the end, I settled on making something with the little hinged box with the blue front.

I wasn't really loving that blue front so my first step was to disguise it behind some text from a dictionary which I covered with mica to make it durable.

That looks better - right? By this stage I had settled on making a pendant box - maybe something of a treasure box? Or a place to keep wishes? Next step - decoration!

Amongst the bits I had fished out was a squished bottle cap and this lovely brass bird - it was a necklace from an oppie. I also added a layer of etched pewter and then rivettted it all to the box lid. I think the key pictured here will dangle from the bottom of the box and I will make a bead chain to hang the pendant from. In the end my studio just got too hot and I had to call it quits but it was a fun play while it lasted. Sometimes it is good to come back to a project later because you see it with fresh eyes and make creative choices you might otherwise have forgone. We'll see. I'll keep you posted ....