Friday Friends - Dusty Divas - Part 20 - Hundreds of Buttons

Hello lovely blog readers - Happy Friday once again ! This week it is my absolute pleasure to introduce a new Friday Friend in Part 20 of the Dusty Diva's series.
I want you to meet Liz from Hundreds of Buttons - she is a lovely genuine soul with real warmth and wisdom - Del and I were so lucky to meet Liz in person when she travelled through our part of the world. We had our own lovely little craft swap when Liz came to town - let me tell you how amazing her tub of button products were ! Liz was taken with a kilt pin brooch I made - and I with a necklace/earrings and bracelet (which I receive comments on whenever I wear them).



By the way did I mention how incredibly generous Liz was with this impromptu swap ? I felt so so spoilt xox

Now lovely readers, grab a cuppa and sit back, take some you time and read the tale of Liz and her crafty love affair with all things button-y !

The Tale of Hundreds of Buttons
Gosh Samara what can I say about myself? Since I started to fiddle with buttons I have entered a whole new world.

Firstly just fiddling with the little critters has been quite therapeutic. My sense of colour has certainly developed, just by sorting buttons into colours.

Now, is this a greenish blue or a blueish green?

A pinkish purple or a blueish purple?

A grey olive green or an olive brownish green? And then there are the whites!

My collection has grown from Mum’s tin and my jar, to a couple of bags of buttons, through ‘hundredsofbuttons’ to ‘millions and billions and trillions of buttons’. I limit myself to recycled, reclaimed buttons; you won’t catch me spending a lot of money on them.

Op shops and leftovers are my thing, and I pick them up wherever I spot them. Friends are on the lookout for me too.

I found the online world of etsy after being encouraged to do something with the growing number of necklaces in my lounge room.

I started making button flowers, put them in my shop as a sideline and sold more button flowers than necklaces.

There’s no end to the things you can do with buttons, and so my stock grows and grows.

Finding etsy led to finding DUST, etsy’s Down Under Street Team, and more recently MEST, the new Melbourne Etsy Street Team.

I’ve met up with many really nice people ‘in the real’ through these teams. We all craft differently and all have our own stories to tell. And my, how we can chat! My learning journey on the internet has been enormous

I’ve set up shops for my sister Jan, who has been crafting and selling for years. but never online. Her art smocks have been such great sellers; her post office staff ask ‘Don’t they have art smocks in America?‘

I’ve even learned to dye buttons because my sister couldn’t buy the right blue to match her knitting yarn.

Want to see more ?
Find Liz's fabulous funky creations at :

http://www.hundredsofbuttons.etsy.com

http://www.madeit.com.au/hundredsofbuttons

http://www.craftumi.com.au/hundredsofbuttons

http://www.artfire.com/users/hundredsofbuttons

connect on facebook at : http://www.facebook.com/pages/hundredsofbuttons/118699091473660

and Jan’s wonderful wares can be found at :

http://www.jskipcreations.etsy.com

http://www.madeit.com.au/jansartsmocks