"buttons - part 2"

As I had promised earlier, I am going reveal the content of the altered tin-box with the "buttons" book plate today.

So... drums, please!....here it comes: a buttons bracelet for my sister!

I was working on it for quite a while, as a nasty facial neuritis and/or the medication against it have been slowing me down for almost the last two months, which made tiny crafting and reading (and also commenting - sorry for that, folks!) quite exhausting for me. And it also took numerous attempts to fix the buttons to the bracelet as shown in the "Distressables 2" book by Tim Holtz.

There the buttons were fixed with thin wire, but I wasn't content with the curled up ends of the wire, as they always would stand out (at least a little) no matter how tight I curled the wire and I was afraid they might pull strings from one's clothing or scratch the skin. So after a few failures I decided to sew the buttons to the bracelet rather than use wire.

So I had to sew at least twenty-five buttons to the small rings of the bracelet. (Did I already mention how much I love sewing buttons?).


 But first I had to glue the transparent buttons onto some scraps of design paper, using transparently drying glue. Then they had to be cut out and coloured on the backsides (which I did with Distress stains "brushed pewter" to match the silvery look of the bracelet). I also sealed that with one layer of glossy Mod Podge to make it a bit more "waterproof".

For the inside of the tin box I wanted to have a "mould" that would hold the bracelet in place. Therefore I glued a small oval piece of thick corrugated card to a larger oval piece that fitted the size of the tin box and covered it with the lovely 7 Gypsies "Paris" collage tissue paper. Some more crumpled up tissue paper to cover the bracelet against the lid of the box - done!

(Hope, my sister will like her present!)

I am entering Simon Says Stamp and Show's "gift-spiration" challenge with this project.