For me my love of buttons started when I was about 5, every week my mum took me to a second hand shop where I was left to amuse myself whilst she and her friend would sit and talk rubbish and forever, but that was just fine by me. The shop was stacked floor to ceiling with almost everything you can imagine. Rummaging around I found several boxes of buttons and sat very happily sorting them all out and each week I was allowed to take home a good handful. Using thread to make a loop and stitching it through the button gave me my first wearable ring, with which I wore till the thread broke. This weekly trip lasted several years and by then I had amassed quite a collection of what I referred to as my bits and bobs! Does anyone remember a comic called “Bunty”. Each week on the back page you got a paper Bunty doll along with the outfit of the week that you could cut out. My dad made me several flat wooden dolls as I got fed up with the paper flapping about and that’s when I started making her outfits from my boxes of bits and bobs and I guess Bunty was my introduction to the world of crafting.
Somehow 25 years passed and although I still occasionally bought any buttons that took my fancy I never got round to doing anything more than just look at them now and then. A few years ago I bought a few ring bases and made a some for fun, and then you know the rest of the story, starts with in my case my daughter wanting one and then another friend and then the why don’t you sell on line. Well I did just that in 2008 and the day I stop enjoying doing what I do is the day that I will stop.