Making Buttons

Today I've been making some felt buttons.


(Updated) Some extra info, for those of you interested in making buttons for your own crafts!

The buttons are made with plain cover buttons which snap together, you can press them together by hand but using a tool makes it much easier. I use a universal cover button tool (pictured above) , you can use it for pressing different sized buttons together, and the packaging also helpfully came with templates drawn on it for the size of felt/fabric you need to cover each size of button.

The wool blend felt I sell is perfect for covering buttons, but remember only to use them for things you won't be washing! I don't sell button making supplies in my shops but your local haberdashery/sewing-supplies shop will probably stock some.

Here are lots of felt buttons I made a couple of years ago - be warned, making these is quite addictive!


The turquoise buttons I've made today are going to be used to make some felt flower brooches & hairbands, like these:


I love the lilac and turquoise colour combo, but if you fancy something a bit different you can now order custom versions of this design - in any colours you want!

Custom Flowers

Today has been one of those "bits and pieces" days: tinkering with this, updating that, re-organising here, re-writing there...

I've also been busy making plans!

One of the things I'm working on at the moment is expanding the range of designs I offer in custom colours. First up, pretty layered felt flower brooches - now available from my Etsy shop or my Folksy shop.


These brooches are made up of six layers of soft wool blend felt, with a cluster of sparkly silver seed beads in the centre. As with all my designs, each shape is lovingly cut by hand with scissors from my own hand-drawn pattern piece.

Choose from 65 colours to match your favourite outfit, or order a batch in your chosen colour scheme for the members of your wedding party.


Psst - if you want any of the flowers shown, they're currently available in my Etsy shop, and you can see other customisable designs HERE.

Crimson Petals

I've been busy doing lots of admin this weekend, and working on a custom order for a wedding that includes lots of crimson corsage brooches...... made from an old wool sweater and lots and lots and lots of black beads!

Very Special Ornaments

I've been working on these ornaments for a while now, but they've been top-secret up until now as they were a surprise wedding present...Each ornament depicts a different one of the couple's interests or favourite things, and they were luckily very well received (phew!).
I'm happy with how they all turned out - and it was a lovely moment seeing them all laid out together like that when I'd finished them - but my favourite is probably the camera, as I love proper old-fashioned cameras and really enjoyed sewing this:

Ornamental Birdies

This morning I finished a custom order for a set of bird ornaments:
I'm hoping to add them to my range next year, joining the bird brooches I've already got listed. This set are destined for a Christmas tree, but I think they'd look super-cute all year round!

I'm working on some new bird designs too, I just can't get enough of these little guys and it's a lot of fun looking through bird books and trying to work out which species would look cute in felt...

UPDATE: I'm gradually turning my bird designs into sewing patterns! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns:

Random Saturday Things

Not very awake this Saturday, wandering round in a bit of a daze & totally forgot to take all the pictures I'd been meaning to post up here of works in progress, etc, and now it is too dark - boohoo.

In the meantime: another small Etsy update. The whole site seems to be going a bit mental over the newly posted Constitution - there are some quite bold changes being proposed, and I can entirely see why some sellers are so upset over it. Hopefully the vocal discussions going on will produce some good positive suggestions, and the rules will get tweaked into something rather wonderful. I am particularly pleased about the changes to the non-paying-buyer rules, as 10 days was a long time to wait to report someone to admin for not paying! (especially for all us paypal users). I can see that there is some trickiness re cheques etc, but 7 days to pay via paypal was just nonsense esp as during those 7 days you could see all the negative feedbacks about your dodgy buyer and know you were never going to get payment - so depressing! Ah well: progress beckons...

I have sold another zine (taking me up to 17 items sold) and my Library Graffiti zine is in a treasury at the moment (a popular item with treasury makers - I've seen it in at least 4! certainly helped my sales the time two people listed it at once!).

I have been working on some new mini-zines with illustrations in them as well as my scribblings. I am making them collection-themed, and have started with a zine about 7 of my favourite brooches. I am sewing copies together this weekend, and will post pics when they're finished. They are a bit scribbly (full of spelling mistakes and my drawing style is a bit - what's the polite term? - "naive") but I am quite pleased with them all the same. It is fun to draw things! I have lots of others planned as I enjoyed making the first one so much - featuring my collections of (possibly) mugs, retro crockery, potplants, records, necklaces, badges, and vintage dresses. I am also scheming an illustrated zine about the cats in my street, because they are all such characters.

I am sewing a lot of felt items at the moment - needlebooks, pincushions and loads of little brooches. I am doing autumn versions of my leafy pins, and lots of button flower brooches. I'm also making a little owl in custom colours for my mother's birthday. As ever, I am finding the sewing process a very soothing one but I keep having very irritating headaches that mean I have to postpone the lovely sewing and do boring chores like washing-up etc instead (boo).

I sold a little owl brooch, a little leaf, some cards, and a couple of birds to a lovely neighbour of mine this week. Actual sales, hurrah! I saw her the other day, and she was wearing my leaf pin which was lovely to see!

Yet More Birds...

The bird production continues apace. I've sold another one now and have some reserved for when a friend's payday rolls round... I am making a mobile for a friend (he is thinking about what he wants on it...) and am making an army bear for someone's boyfriend (will post a pic when this is finished, my first proper commission!) and am working on an item to send as part of the UK Etsier's first swap. Oh, and I am joining the WI and shall hopefully start selling at their market in a fortnight. Also: I got a big pile of cello envelopes through the post the other day, have put all my cards in them and they look so much better than loose: so professional looking & of course they will help keep the cards looking smart and neat. Need to order more envelopes already though as I had more cards lurking about that I'd thought!