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-   -   PLEASE!! Button Storage Suggestions-PLEASE!! (https://www.quiltingboard.com/mission-organization-f23/please-button-storage-suggestions-please-t171621.html)

tiptrinket 06-30-2012 12:39 PM

VERY cool "Button Box". I make jewelry out of buttons so I have buttons everywhere. I love to eat Cool Whip so I have containers for pretty buttons for jewelry., buttons for wall hangings, small buttons for kids clothes, etc etc. I somehow know where most of them are. Just posted some of my button bracelets on my etsy site. Buttons are so much fun!
Having a huge box of buttons (like in the picture)would be fun. I would love to pick thru them.

auntpiggylpn 06-30-2012 12:42 PM

I was in a OSMG shop in Michigan a few weeks ago and he had an old dresser in the shop and the top drawer was pulled part of the way out and filled almost to the top with buttons! Now, that would be my dream: Enough buttons to fill a drawer. I would be digging thru them all the time, just looking at them that I would never get anything else done!

chips88 06-30-2012 01:26 PM

i just use mason jars for my buttons. that way you can see what you have. thanks

maryellen2u 07-01-2012 03:10 PM

My Grandmother, who was born in 1890 and sewed all her life, stored her buttons in an old round metal tin. As a child I remember whiling away many afternoons just combing through her button collection. I am happy to say I have her old tin with some of her buttons still in it with an addition of my mother's buttons and now my own. They are just in the tin. It is still relaxing just to sort through the collection. Who will I pass it onto when I die? I gave birth to only sons and my daughters in law, while all sweet have no interest in anything old or to do with sewing.

HisPatchwork 08-13-2012 07:21 PM

WOW! That button box is neat!

Originally Posted by ThayerRags (Post 5308259)
I recommend a button box. Our Shop came with a button box that dates back a little over 50 years, back to when the building was a “Variety Store” as they called general merchandise stores back then. The 48” by 30” by 16” deep (not counting the stand) “Button Box” has remained in the shop ever since. We’re the third owners of it. Originally, it was only 4” deep, but somebody put taller sideboards on it sometime along the way.

We decided to relocate the box within the shop in 2006, and had to empty the buttons out to do so. We used 30-gal plastic barrels to offload the buttons into and wheel them to the new location. During the process, we did a rough estimation on the button count in the box (using gallons and cups, and counting several random cupfuls to arrive at an average), and concluded that there were roughly 250,000 buttons.

I buy all of the buttons that I can at yardsales, Estate Sales, and Auctions, and add them to the box to keep it freshened up and help maintain the volume. Customers buy buttons for 5-cents each, the same price it’s always been. We think it’s still a fair price for a button, considering that you have to look through 249,999 other buttons to find it. We help hunt when we can. We call it “Button Boxing”, and it’s about the most strenuous Sporting Event that we indulge in at our shop.

CD in Oklahoma


lizzy 08-14-2012 04:19 AM

I went through the process of separating my buttons by different catagories and then needed the drawers I had put them in so I dumped all of them in one big metal cookie tin. I enjoy looking all through the tin for the right buttons and now I have 4 empty drawers to fill. All I have to do is remember where I put my buttons when I reorganized!

Pieces2 08-15-2012 05:24 AM

I store my buttons in a Mason jar, the old type with a lid and wire closure.
Looks great sitting on a shelf in my sewing room.

DebbE 09-10-2012 06:45 AM

Mine are in Sterilite plastic containers with the top -- but its a hassle if you have to find several of the same type of button! My LQS has skinny plastic tubes with tops that they've glued one button to the top and the others are inside of the tubes...love that idea, but I don't have access to those types of tubes with lids....

MrsM 09-10-2012 08:35 AM

I just got a tool storage chest from my in-laws cellar. It has rows of little plastic drawers for screws, naill, nuts etc. I plan to store buttons and other little notions in it.

Ioftheneedle 09-28-2012 02:15 PM

Mine are not sorted but stored in large jars from food from Sam's. I do like the ideas I see here for sorting.
Some are pretty old. The buttons from my mother are in a blue canning jar.


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