Remember Grandma's Jar of Buttons? You can easily start your own. New garments often have an extra button! The button is often in a tiny plastic bag attached somewhere to the garment. Instead of discarding the extra button, place it in a jar with a lid, and start your own button jar. It can be handy to have an extra button.
Add your voice! Click below to comment. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
Hey Barb, I love, love, love this Button Jar post. My own Grandmother (way back in the 1960's of my childhood) had a huge button jar with an assortment of string, yarn and shoestrings that us youngsters were allowed to make necklaces and bracelets for show! It was hours of fun for us youngsters and the only rule was that we cleaned up the mess and returned the buttons and strings to the jar after the fun. Seriously, this jar was over two gallon sized and full of buttons and ripe for a child's imagination (not too mention how well made they were!)
Older cousins got the bulk of Grandma's buttons after she passed, but that didn't stop me, in my own adulthood, from starting my own collection. My own button jar is currently over a gallon's worth of buttons and mostly comprised of smaller jars I bought at auctions and flea markets in my 20's, 30's and 40's. Who am I kidding? I still watch for them in my 50's! Like you, I added all of the "found" buttons that come with new clothes and collected such from discarded clothing over the years to grow my own Button Jar!
It's silly fun and a pure pleasure to add to my glass button jar as I try to carry on a light hearted, yet heart-felt, family tradition. Too boot, can't even tell you how many times I have found several of one style or a single button option to reuse for regular clothing mending projects as well as active sewing projects!
Hooray for the Button Jar. :-) Thanks for sharing this habit and jogging my memory of it's value!
My mother always did this. If a garment had to be downgraded to a rag, all the buttons came off and went into the jar. I don't know when she started, but I inherited her button jars (2) and now my own makes three! Some of my mother's are old and ornate and beautiful. I'll have to "put my thinking cap on" and come up with a way to display them, maybe as a collage.
I take the plastic bag with the button and safety pin it to the label of the item. I will then always know where it is if I lose a button or decide to give the item away the new holder will have the button.
Add your voice! Click below to comment. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
Never throw away buttons, when you discard old clothing. I cut them off and store them in a container. I use them in may crafts and you never know when a button on a shirt will need replaced. My button jar has saved me time and money!
By Bobbie
I also cut off good buttons before donated clothing to Goodwill. You can replace cheap/ugly buttons on items in your existing wardrobe and make them look richer and of better quality then they were when you bought them. (04/27/2005)
By Claudia
I too have a jar of buttons that I have been adding buttons for years. I originally started saving them in an old glass canning jar to put on my kitchen cupboard. They come in very handy when I am looking for an odd button. (10/08/2008)
By Donna
I have buttons from my grandmother, born in 1901, and my mother, born in 1928. And then, I have my own. I was born in 1951 and remember loving to look through my grandmothers button basket.
