Button bonanaza

Now, I know I said I was working on a pincushion...well I certainly have been but three attempts down the line I am still not happy with it (damn my perfectionism) and have given up at least for the short term. Who would have thought a pincushion would be so complex? It might have to do with it being in the shape of a whale!

Anyway - I took a trip to Leicester on Friday to meet a friend and she took me to a wonderful little craft shop called Button Boutique http://www.buttonboutiqueleicester.co.uk/

I was specifically looking for some form of clasp for a bracelet I was making, but unfortunately I couldn't find anything which quite fitted what was in my imagination! However, I finished the bracelet this afternoon, eventually using a rustic looking button from my mum's vast collection as the fastening. I got the cute little beads from ebay. I'm not too happy with the quality of the cord I used as it isn't real suede it does snap if you pull it hard enough.

Although I didn't find what I was originally looking for, Button Boutique housed all manner of other wonderful craft items which, as the name suggests, included a wide range of buttons. This reminded me of another project I had in the pipeline - to make some hair pieces which had a large button as the centre, as I had seen some in the bedroom of the same friend mentioned earlier in this post. This of course means that once again I have to give credit to someone else's imagination for these (they were made by another friend of this friend), but I'm beginning to this there is no such thing as an 'original' idea!

Above is my first, and will not be my last hair piece - and I am very pleased with the end result! The ribbon also came from Button Boutique and although this picture does not very well capture the colour, both the ribbon and the button are a rich purple (this and orange being my favourite colours).

I got a few other buttons and ribbons from the shop as well - so watch this space for more of these beauties :)