Button Love!

Oh my!  After a marathon of cleaning and sorting, I can finally reveal my favorites from the recent Button Motherlode.

You can click these pictures bigger but I took a bunch of close-ups so here we go on a photo-heavy post.

All of these buttons on the ecru paper doily are glass.

I adore those clear ones with the painted flowers!

The milk glass buttons right below them are whistles.  Sorry I didn't get an angle where you can see the side with two holes.

Big white Moonglows.

There is a little black and white china stencil down at the bottom, above the glass flowers.

These rhinestones are set in plastic buttons.  Glass rhinestones are a favorite but if it sparkles, I'll take it!

There were a lot of the tortoise shell-type buttons in this lot.

These cut steels are the result of my rescue attempt.  They were in the smelly tin that I had to dump straight in to the soapy water, in spite of what they were made of.  Just way too stinky to even have inside my house.  Naturally, they rusted.  I did the best I could to clean them up but I suspect the original finish was somewhat different than what I ended up with.  I am still happy to have them and managed to salvage about 20.

The black buttons at the top are unusual, or at least I haven't encountered them before.  The dark part is made from some sort of composite material and the centers are clear plastic that seem like it might have been poured in.

These beautiful blue buttons are metal.

BIG Lucite buttons with white centers.

I still can't get over the variety.  Those red buttons did not warp when I washed them.  They started out that way and I think that is the way they were originally made.

Looking at these photos, I see those green ones and the red ones down at the bottom could use a little more cleaning.

There are quite a few that I think are Bakelite but it isn't that important to me to know so I haven't bothered to test them.

I already gave these butterscotch ones another clean after I took this picture.

Love these little "gears"!

These have a metal ring set inside them.

More plastic rhinestones. I can't usually bring myself to part with them but there were so many duplicates in this lot that I listed some on my Etsy.  I will be putting together some mixed lots for Etsy, as well.
Maybe someday I will be a real collector and mount them on cards.  For now, I just started a new jar. I really should sort some in to categories and take some intentional pictures for Pinterest.  I already have a huge virtual collection on my Buttons board but I never seem to get around to posting any of my own buttons.  So many ideas and so little time.  I am going to ROCK retirement one of these days!
For those of you who suggested Barkeepers Friend for the mark on the Pyrex bowl - THANK YOU!  It worked like a charm and I have a new tool in my cleaning arsenal.