Project: Button Art

Buttons! I first fell in love with buttons when I was planning our wedding. Flowers really aren’t our thing – yes, they are beautiful, but they die very quickly. I was browsing though the Real Simple Wedding magazine back in 2010 and a button boutonniere caught my eye. Upon visiting the Etsy shop who made the delightful ornament, I realize that we would have button bouquets and boutonnieres.

Our wedding colours were purple, black, white, and grey/silver. Thus…I had to buy a lot of buttons! The result, being left with a lot of extra buttons…and here we have, button art!

What You Need

glue gun with glue
printer (or the ability to draw)
paper and a frame or a canvas

What I did first was pick a shape. We have a Moose on our wall – it’s all white taxidermy (not real) so I’m inspired by the wilderness around us in Northern Alberta. I decided to do the profile of an elk – I searched the internet for a profile picture, blew it up to 450% and printed it off. Then I traced the outline onto a blank piece of paper.

Next, place all of your buttons. I suggest laying them all out before you start gluing – once it’s all laid out you can see if you like it or move things around.

Done the layout! As you can see – the blue trace lines are visible…so we don’t glue onto that paper.

Take another piece of paper, or your original template and trace over it with a very dark marker. Put a blank piece of paper on top (this will be the paper you glue to). You can see though the white paper a bit, so the outline is noticeable. Follow it. Transfer one button at a time from the practice layout to the good copy. Glue as you go. Be careful not to bump your project!