Making Vintage Button Bracelets

The most popular picture on my Facebook page is of a stretch bracelet. I made this out of vintage buttons that my husband brought home for me. I think to date that some 400 people have viewed it. If you add together my Business page fans and my personal page friends, I do not have 400 fans and friends. I have no idea who viewed it.

I do know I love the bracelet though.

Bone, stones, buttons and beads.

I had no idea other people would like it as well. Well, one does always hope.

Wearing it to my Aunt’s home, I was immediately commissioned to make a second bracelet by one of her friends. The problem was I did not have any more vintage buttons. She was very disappointed when I told her I had no idea when I would get more of the vintage materials.

Unlike when you make a necklace or bracelet out of purchased beads, this is a supply issue piece. I have to be lucky enough to find the supplies in order to make the bracelet. There was no store I could go back to and buy more.

In my searches on eBay, Amazon, and Etsy, I discovered vintage beads are pricey and hard to come by. Condition was a negative issue as well.

I purchased these beads listed as Buttons Galore off of Amazon in an attempt to recreate the first bracelet I made.

Haberdashery Buttons

A few days after I settled for the modern version buttons, I happened to find a Moving Sale in our neighborhood. It was one of those yard sales that you keep following the signs from the main road until you are about to give up. It was almost 11:30 so everything had already been picked over. And then I found “the box”. The 2 foot square box was labeled “sewing stuff” and it was jam packed with everything from crochet needles to forty spools of thread, freakishly curved needles, sewing machine parts, thimbles, lace, scraps, elastics, and a battered box of buttons. I quickly paid the requested $10 without even trying to negotiate.

Lots and lots of materials I have no idea how to use.

I giggled the entire way home. I had found buttons!

And boy did I ever. They were the exact kind I need to make the vintage button bead bracelets. I felt like my stepson playing with his Legos.

Lovely lovely buttons and one little red button that was just so cute he snuck in the picture.

Wouldn’t you know, I found these the exact same day that the Haberdashery buttons arrived in the mail. There was no comparison. The vintage beads have that history and charm you cannot create without decades of love and use.

So by the time my husband came home I had been sitting at the kitchen island for two hours making vintage button bracelets.

Vintage Buttons Bracelets in Bone Colors

And the original color was not enough. I made more in black.

Amazing buttons!

The amount of buttons I found at the Moving Sale is enough to make another three or four bracelets in the future.

My lesson here is not to settle for reproduction materials if you can help it. Salvage what you can from other’s unwanted treasures.

The bracelet commissioned by a friend is just as lovely as the one I kept for myself and she was absolutely thrilled.

I will list one or two in my Etsy store if there is a demand.