According to me I store my all buttons with separate small basket. I have plenty of button so sometimes confusing to storage such kind of things. Tat is why I divide it like store warm color buttons in separate basket and cool colored buttons in separate basket.

I like the look of buttons in the old Mason jars with the glass lids... but I like ANYTHING older than I am!!

I use the tiny little craft ziplock bags. I sort just as they are when they are put on a button card. Then I file the bags by color. I repurpose buttons so I get quite a few and do not want to do the pour and sort everytime I need buttons. In the bags I know just how many I have and if they will work for my project at a glance. I store the bags in the plastic bins with drawers that the guys usually store nuts & bolts in.

This is great idea that you suggest. Mason jars will be the nice option to store buttons, I didn't even notice about that Mason jars will be useful in this way. I saw many Mason jars will available in so many different colors and size.

This is a great way to store buttons!

I just store my buttons in an old metal can - the kind you can buy at Christmas time to put candy, etc in - I don't have that many so it serves my purpose.

I am putting my vintage buttons, some still on cards, in a glass container with lid so that I can see the beauties.

My own button collection is sorted by individual style and color before being threaded together with a short piece of floral wire. I cut the wire long enough to be able to twist the ends closed like a twist tie. Extra buttons with accompanying info from purchased garments are kept together in a quart plastic freezer bag.

My aunt used to collect buttons, which was her main hobby. She had rack after rack of buttons mounted on paper boards carefully placed in custom frames. Her husband made the frames, I suppose she used frames because her father had a decorating store where he sold paint, wallpaper, custom frames, replacement glass, etc. She and my mother certainly knew how to replace glass panes and putty the edges. It's interesting to me that how our past experiences influence our current actions.

i use double sided fishing tackle boxes.

Ikea has some great option
 

I purchased what was to be used for knife storage, a wide magnectic bar and some clear jars from ikea. I put my buttons by color into the jars and clung them to the bar. They come in many sizes. Works great. You can see what you have and is very inexpensive.

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

button storage
 

I did have them in old cookie cans still do have some to sort, but this is what I'm doing now.:)

I have a lot of buttons, I really do. Unless they are new and on the cards. I have them strung together like others, Then sorted by color into gallon size bags and all of those put into one of those big fabric bin drawers in my cubby shelf. Then if I need a set of buttons i can just get out the right color bag and look through them.

I love the idea of mason jars. I already have a bunch of the old kind with the glass lids or with zinc lids that are full of all the old thread on wooden spools that I have. They look pretty great and are more for decoration then anything. The empty spools went in a gallon jar. I could do the same with buttons, but I am running out of room.

I use an old tin, like they had in the 50's and love it. When I need a button, I start digging--always fun. Can't believe how expensive the store bought buttons are. It takes 2 minutes to cut them off of old garments.

I have a workshop multi-drawer unit, it was for nails and screws. It hangs nicely on the wall out of the way, but easy to access and I sort by color.

i put mine in jars so i can see what i have.and lots of them

I like the idea of baby food jars and they stack so nice and u can store them on a desk so u can c them
http://signatures.mylivesignature.co...C68D6DB95A.png

I didn't really have a button collection until last fall. I was at a local festival, walking through the antique yard sale. I found and old round tin that was exactly like the one that my mother had when I was growing up. My MIL paid the whopping $1 that the vendor wanted for it and now I am constantly on the lookout for buttons at garage sales, flea markets ect. I recently went to a local sewing guilds bi-annual garage sale. They had a large jar with a mixture of vintage and newer buttons in it. The price was $1 a scoop and for every $10 you spent on other items, you got a free scoop. I got lots of nice fabric and a large ziplock bag full of buttons to help fill up my button tin.

When I was a child, I loved my mom's button collection probably recycled from the many garments she had sewn. I would line them up like a choir with the different sectiona. I ended up being a music director with a choir of young people rather than buttons :). I keep my buttons on the top of a shelf in pint jars that I have put a round of fabric that coordinates with my sewing room under the lid. I take all of my buttons off of their cards and then semi coordinate them in the jars. I have a white jar, modern colors, red, yellow, browns , blues and greens, and two jars of vintage buttons that I have kept from my mom's button box. She passed away last week. I think I may sit down, dump them all out and organize my choir just for the fun of it.

Hi Debra...just as an idea, having received a huge container of about a zillion buttons from my grandmother when she passed - last year i made quilted Christmas stocking gifts - and used white, yellow, red, green, silver and gold buttons - overlapping the ones that had shanks on the buttons - stitched to the stockings in a wreath pattern. It used up so many - and family appreciated that the buttons had belonged to Gram.

Here u go, just got all this info on what to do with your buttons and sotring them in old peanut or candy vending machines:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php...type=1&theater

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.

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!

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

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.

WOW! That button box is neat!

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!

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.

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....

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.

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.

Those small metal or plastic cabinets with oodles of little drawers would be good for buttons. I would do that myself, but I don't have the room for the cabinet (although it just occured to me I could mount it on a wall....hmmm...).

I have multiples strung together, and are put in a plastic shoebox. Of course its a hassle looking for buttons as you have to paw through them....hmmm, that little drawer cabinet is sounding better and better....

I like this idea of stringing together like size and kind buttons. I use a spice rack and spice jars as mt holding containers.

I have 3 shoe boxes that I have covered with beautiful wall paper. One is for very good buttons - antique or expensive, saved for very good garments; one for children's chothes; one for very plain buttons, men's shirt buttons, inexpensive buttons, etc. Inside, sets of buttons are in clear RX containers, loose buttons are loose. The boxes are big enough it is easy to sort through the buttons and find one to match a shirt that has lost a button, enough matching for a new blouse, etc. No need to dump the buttons out to find what I need.

My boss at the LYS used to store them in long tubes with screw on tops. They were clear and one of the buttons was on the end of each tube. Worked very well and stored nicely.

I separate mine by size and color and store them in used glass jars with lids...mayonaisse, mustard, jams, jellies. They look pretty lined up on the hutch in my cave, and I can see at a glance what I have. Cheap, too!

I used to use those sectional plastic boxes for embroidery threads...about 30 sections 1,1/2x1,1/2". Perfect for storing lots of small things!

I use a glass goldfish bowl. I have an old one with a picture of Garfield looking over the edge!! It will hold more buttons than I will every want to look thru!!

Oooooooooooooooo - I loved seeing your collection. Made me happy! Thanks for sharing.

I have many of mine in glass jars. Some sorted, some not. My plan in my reorganized studio is to paint the lids all one color- maybe jadeite green. I think they will be so pretty. Someday I will sort them all by color! That will be a fun (several) rainy day(s) activity.

Love your story and love your photo. Would love to button hunt there!
lots2do