What to do with Antique Buttons?

When I was in Midland a couple weeks ago sewing Anna's crib bedding, my mom and I were digging through some drawers to find sewing scissors and stumbled upon her aunt's antique button collection in the bottom of a drawer. They had been sitting there untouched for a few years and as soon as I saw them all, a light bulb went off and I had an idea to create something from them. I quickly pulled them all out and stashed them in my suitcase to haul back to Richardson.

Here they are; a little dusty and dirty but with a quick cleaning and organizing, I was ready to being my latest project. My great aunt (Marcella) was a collector of pretty much anything and everything. She was a hoarder long before the TLC show "Hoarders" started airing and when my grandmother (Mutti) saw this show for the first time, she was amazed that other people across the US had the same thing. She always thought Aunt Marcella was the only one and to be honest, so did I! She was an extremely talented artist who painted beautiful porcelain pieces from complete china sets to serving dishes to Christmas ornaments and everything in between. I don't think there was anything she hadn't attempted to paint. Her house in North Dakota was full of many treasured collections including stamps, buttons (see in the pictures here), china, costume jewelry, cards, linens, newspapers, etc. She kept every single card and newspaper she ever received and even had an inventory log to see who sent her cards for holidays and birthdays every year. Oh and if you didn't send her a thank you card, she would call my mom or Mutti to make sure they knew we hadn't sent a proper thank you. Sometimes my mom would even get "in trouble" for not sending thank you notes to Aunt Marcella quick enough!

I thought it would be fun to make a button wreath out of all the old buttons so I picked up a foam wreath and some burlap from Michael's for very cheap and all it took was a dozen sticks of hot glue and a couple hours of gluing to create this wreath for my mom. I have no idea what she'll do with it - hopefully hang it somewhere in her house, but at least the buttons aren't sitting unused or unseen in the bottom of a drawer anymore!

Keith keeps asking what I am going to do once I am finished with all of my current projects, but I have a feeling I will always find or create more projects to work on. I love being busy and can't seem to sit still when I'm at home...