Buttons by Candlelight, aka "How to make a button bracelet"

You may recall my whinging recently about the price of buttons going up to the dizzying heights of $5 a jar at one of my local opshops...? Well when I was last in I was glad to see that the button jar pricer had come to their senses (...perhaps their sales were down due to my refusal to by buttons...? I buy enough of them so that certainly is possible...) & repriced the jars at $2. That's a dollar cheaper than they used to be before the crazy jump! So I bought 3 jars of buttony, buttony goodness, and spent an embarrassingly long period of time sorting them into colour families.

Things I learnt about opshop jars of buttons;

There are more white or clear than any other colour.

The least popular colour is yellow.

There are some hideously ugly buttons in there.

After sorting them I realised that I finally had enough red buttons of the appropriate size to make myself a button bracelet - Hurrah!

Button Bracelet Supplies;

1 candle

1 (or several... just to be safe) quite large, strong needle

A charm bracelet blank

Jump rings

Pliers

As many (plastic) buttons as you want on your bracelet

Ah! Crafting by candlelight....

Light your candle & hold the tip of your needle in the flame, I try to heat as much of the needle as I can as it makes going through the entire button a wee bit easier, but it depends on the size of your needle, you don't want to burn your fingers!

You might want to use gloves or use your pliers to hold the needle, but I found it fine to hold on it's own - just make sure you hold it as far back as possible.

Decide where you want the hole for your jump ring to go & pierce it with your needle - you have to be really fast with this step or your needle will be too cool & you'll either have to heat it up again or you'll bend the tip of your needle. Not that I know, because I wouldn't have done it any way other than perfectly... *whistles inconspicuously*

What worked for me; Holding the button up & piercing it from the side & then twisting the button down the length of the needle. Sometimes the button gets stuck at the bottom of the needle, just push the point onto a flat surface & press the button down & it will slide off.

Pierce many buttons. Attach with jump rings to bracelet using your trusty pliers. You can arrange your buttons in the order you want them before you attach them, but I just did it haphazardly, as I do.





Take artsy fartsy photos of your lovely new bracelet & admire your handy work. Perhaps even wear it. Wonder if making button bracelets counts as wardrobe refashioning.