Sunday, June 26, 2011

Jammin Buttons with Mrs. Julie Buttons

It is SO JAMMIN that Julie Buttons is JAMMIN with us!
She is a TREASURE!!!

So, the 1st button dates back to 2000 bc.

Then, in the 13th century, the button hole was invented!
Whoa - trivia mania here we come!

Most buttons were used for Men's clothing only - pretty much until the
19th century women used hooks & lacing.

Buttons and button holes were mainly seen on the "rich & famous". Louis XIV was said to have spent $5 million dollars on buttons in his lifetime!

The National Button Society says that if a button was made before 1918 then it is called vintage or old and after that is called modern. :)
We're spring chickens if that's the case!

Our class was cute as button to say the least!

The picture you see below is an example of a charm string - these were started in Victorian times (1870-1910). Young girls would start them . . . the first button - aka the touch stone - then on every special occasion a friend or family member would give them a button to add to their charm string. The 1000th button supposedly would come from their husband to be.

Julie Buttons knows so much about buttons and has the most amazing collections. She went through different buttons, their materials, the shanks (shanks are on the back of a button :: pad shanks, loop shanks, box shanks . . . the list of shanks is endless in itself). We started off looking at hers & then after our "Buttons 101", she assisted in looking through
our buttons collections.

In this picture you will see buttons made from shells, plastic, Lucite, metal mirrored, celluloid, glass, china (also known as Satsuma) & more.

Buttons made from horns and bones! Bones are typically known for being "underwear buttons" on pajamas back in the day.

One of Mrs. Julie Buttons favorite type of button in her own collection were the black glass buttons you'll see below. She has them perfectly placed on the board to ISA standards.
Another collection that she tends to is a collection of Bakelite objects - everything from knives, cake tools, napkin rings and bracelets. Bakelite is a material that is also used fro buttons - an interesting trivia about Bakelite is that one of the ingredients used to make it is formaldehyde!

All of Julie Buttons, buttons, were organized by type and labeled in their own baggies. This made for an easy way to look through & learn for us jammers!
The wooden ones below are so JAMMIN!

Dump em out on a tray and get to sorting is what we did!


Now we have all the white together - which are plastic?
Which are glass? And, which are shell?

I felt like a little girl learning about all these secrets and mysteries! It was so jammin - we can't wait for Mrs. Julie Buttons to return in August for button art!

In the meantime, if you would like to hunt and look into buttons on your own, Julie suggests the website Button Country.
There is so much information that site is gone buttons!

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