Back in the days before fast fashion and the consumer society, when clothing was valued, we used to use and re-use materials, throwing away as little as we could manage. In our house, when clothes became worn to the point when they were no longer usable, they would be destined for the rag bag, but any buttons were removed first and saved. This is analogous to the ‘Box o’ Bits’ in the garage, and allowed buttons in particular to be saved. This gave rise to the button jar.
These recycled buttons had a number of uses:
Repair – it is a pain in the umm… posterior when a button comes adrift, and there is no spare in place on the garment. Enter the button jar! A mix of different sizes, shapes and colours will mean that it is likely you will have something close, if not identical, to effect a repair. Also, EVERYONE should learn the skill required to sew a button on!
Reconfigure – I have had a shirt for a while which tended to drive me crazy because the buttons were too small for the buttonholes so that it tended to come unbuttoned at inopportune times and make me look like a slob (well, more than usual). Linda was able to extract a full set of buttons from her button jar which were just big enough to stop them pulling through the buttonhole. Problem solved!
Play – Man, is there anyone who doesn’t like playing with buttons? I did when I was a kid! Obviously you need to be a bit circumspect with younger kids who are likely to insert them in inconvenient orifices in themselves or others, but a bit of common sense goes a long way! I remember a toy we would make with a button and loop of cotton or string, which could then be used to spin the button around. A whizzing button is lots of fun, trust me!
Manufacture – of garments from scratch using bought in, repurposed, stored or recovered fabric. By saving the buttons for repurposing you will have a series of buttons enough to make a new garment without having to go to the trouble and expense of buying new ones. Not to mention all the benefits of recycling!
Craft – Buttons can be pressed into service to help make dust collectors like felt Christmas trees with buttons glued on in lieu of decorations or buttons glued onto a frame to make a patchwork button picture (if that is your thing). A clock with buttons instead of numbers to measure the passing of time anyone?
Games – buttons can be used as counters in any number of homemade board games (eg draughts/checkers: if you don’t already have a board it is easy to make one) or to replace counters and other paraphernalia which have gone missing from bought in board games, thus increasing their life.
Motivation – One of the threats my mother would use if I did something I wasn’t supposed to or failed to do something I should have was that she would “cut my bottom off and sew a button on”. If that’s not motivation I don’t know what is!
Education – Use buttons to show your kids how the ancient calculating machine – the abacus – was made and used.
Weddings – when my daughter got married, rather than use perishable flowers as bouquets for the bridesmaids she crafted balls out of polystyrene and buttons, with a single colour of button for each bouquet. They were much longer lived and more striking than just flowers.
Jewellery - small buttons can be crafted into earrings, larger buttons can be made into rings to wear on your fingers and any size buttons can be strung together with ribbon or twine to make a bracelet.
So, now you know the value of the humble button jar, the obvious question is – how do you get one? For me there are 3 answers –
1. Start your own – you can do this by removing buttons from clothing which has been worn to death and is headed for the rag bag or is to be repurposed. Over time you will build up your very own stash of buttons for the button jar. Also, you do occasionally see old button stocks for sale cheaply at haberdashery shops or the like, and you can use these to build up your stocks quickly as well as preventing the out of fashion buttons being sent to landfill.
2. Buy one – Due to the fact that button jars are just not valued the way they should be these days, I quite often see button jars for sale in second hand shops like the Sallies (Salvation Army) or Vinnies (St Vincent De Paul Society) etc. While I suspect the button jars I have seen were donated by people who no longer value them, it is possible that the shops put together their own using buttons salvaged from clothing destined for use as rags.
3. Inherit one – If you have any elderly (usually female) relatives, let them know you would be honoured to receive any button jars/boxes they have if they no longer use them and you will ensure they will not go to waste. My wife has a button jar (or box actually) that was my mothers, given to her by my father and rest assured we will be passing our button jars down to our girls when we get to the point that we can no longer use them.
So, don’t just sit there reading stuff on your computer, get out there and collect some buttons!
