Monday, May 2, 2011

Not Buttons

Some of you may know about and indeed share my passion for, OK obsession with vintage buttons. I have a fantastic and extensive collection of old buttons that I sorted by color, material, number of holes. Yeah, it's serious.


I buy jars of mixed buttons at thrift shops and yard sales. When I need some meditative time, I'll pour a jar out on the table and spend a few hours sorting the buttons.


Along with the buttons there are often other objects mixed in. I keep these items too, I think of them as "not buttons". I recently snapped a picture of them which sparked interest among my Flickr friends.


My friend, JunkCulture suggested I do a photo series called Not Buttons and I loved the idea so here is the beginning of that project! All images taken with iPod Touch and the Hipstamatic App.













17 comments:

  1. ahh I love this! I once bought a big bag of vintage "beads" that was actually mostly buttons and non beads lol but it was fun to keep finding the random stuff in the pile!

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  2. Beautiful array of "not buttons"! I love your collection of buttons! I understand the meditative quality of playing with buttons. There is something so satisfying about running your hands through a box of buttons. I am the same way with beach glass.

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  3. Very creative and inspired.. I like the randomness of the very organized subject matter.
    I cant get my hipstamatic pics to come out this cool. Whats your secret?!

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  4. Love it! Finding art in the mundane. I hadn't thought of button sorting like a meditative practice but I agree that it would be. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. I love stuff like this. You should add these pics to that collections group on Flickr, I forget the official name, but these would be perfect.
    I understand the meditative aspect. I just ordered a bag of fabric scraps for various projects and really enjoyed sorting them by color (I'm not OCD, I promise). :)

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  6. Fabulous! Even better than I envisioned!

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  7. these are great! i sort mine by color, but not amount of holes,lol ;)
    that may be my next step.
    there are a few flickr button groups i belong to-can't get enough buttons :)

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  8. I'm a button nutt too! :-) I like all the colors of your "Not" buttons too! :-)

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  9. Love the photos, but what are those in the last picture?

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  10. Danielle - Right? Fun to discover what's in the mix :)

    Jane - Yes! Beach glass too, excellent :)

    Athena - Thanks! I don't know, I experiment A LOT with Hipstamatic, trying all the different combos of lenses, films and flashes.

    Leslie - Yep, nothing soothes my busy mind more than button (and non-button) sorting.

    My Hideaway - Ooh fabric scraps! I have those too :) I do have mild OCD, that's a big part of the allure of these sorting tasks :)

    Junkculture - YAY!! Delighted to hear that, thanks so much for the idea!

    andrea creates - I only sort them by hole number when I have too many of one color. But it's also tremendously helpful when I'm using the buttons in production and I need to quickly find a certain kind.

    PoetessWug - Thanks! Cheers to button nuts :)

    mimi - Thanks! They are mostly little glass tiles, and 2 ceramic ones!

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  11. Very cool! I love the hooks... they look like little medieval torture devices. Wait...that sounds crazy. I don't love torture devices.

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  12. Thanks for fixing my computer so I could see this beautiful blog post.

    You have an amazing collection of buttons. It is wonderful to watch you sorting them.

    The 'Not Buttons' collection is true art.

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  13. I too love vintage buttons and have a whole bunch of them. I save every extra button that comes with clothing in a little drawer, that's not full. Love your not button collection too. :)

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  14. Oooh, buttons. I love to sort the polymer buttons I make, but I like your way, too. I didn't even *think* of doing it with vintage buttons. Fun :-)

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  15. ha! I was just sorting through my vintage button collection, lol! My favs are the carved shell ones, but your "not buttons" are even better!
    xo

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  16. Lots of cool stuff, the fun is in the looking and sorting..........Doesn't matter if they are put to use, practical or otherwise !

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