Doing the Button Happy-Dance and We Have a SugarCushion Winner!

First things first, we have a SugarCushion winner!  The random number generator selected comment #10.  Congratulations to Diane at My Art Journal!  She has been following my blog for a long time and always has such kind words of encouragement. I am delighted to be gifting her this little SugarCushion!  Diane, please email me your mailing address and I will send it off to its new home.  Many thanks to all of you who follow and entered.

 Friday morning a co-worker walked in to my office and she mentioned that we occasionally run into each other at Michaels and JoAnn so she knows I craft and asked me if I would like to have a big tin of buttons someone had given to her.  Hmm...  let me think a minute...  WELL YES!!!  Oh.My.Gosh.  A big fruitcake tin of buttons just dropped from the heavens above and landed right in my hands like a gift from the button picking gods.  I could hardly contain myself and had to go put it in the trunk of my car where I couldn't see it.  When I got home I zoomed my chores so I could start poking and sorting and cleaning and oohing and aahing...

 The buttons above are the glass ones. The little group of clear ones in the center are unusual.  They are clear glass on the front, like a rhinestone, with a translucent white glass piece attached on the back.  The big round thing at the top is obviously not a button but I included it because I thought it was neat.  A cafe curtain ring made of glass - who knew!

 These are the more interesting plastics.  I know there is some Bakelite in here because I could smell it when I was washing them but I don't have any Scrubbing Bubbles right now to test with.  There are some reds and butterscotch that look like good suspects.  After I took the pictures I started stringing them up and realized the transparent amber ones are glass and not plastic.  You should be able to double-click the pictures to make them bigger.

 This pile is the Mother of Pearl.  Love, love , love the three at the bottom of the photo.  The one on the far right looks like a little sailboat.  There are lots of the really tiny baby clothes size buttons, including two that are dyed pink.  How sweet!

This picture shows the more interesting metal buttons, some wooden ones and some plastic rhinestone buttons.  The two white ones on the bottom right side are far too stained to use for anything except art making but I included them in the photo because I thought they were interesting.  These are the first time I have seen fabric buttons with rhinestones on them.  The four on the bottom left need further investigation.  They are large [1"] and marked LIDZ on the back.
It was a large tin of buttons so there is yet another pile, probably bigger than what I have shown, of more ordinary plastic, leather and metal buttons as well as all the usual button-box junk.  Curtain rings, beads, snaps, googly eyes and game pieces.  No bullets or baby teeth in this one - LOL!
Gosh.  I just love buttons.