Buttons

Today I almost finished my shirt for my work's Independence Day party. All that was left were buttons and button holes. I searched my stash for appropriate buttons, but nothing looked right. Understandably so as I hardly ever make anything red. 

So I did what any normal person would do, decided to make my own buttons. I wasn't sure I could match the red, so I didn't want to do plain ones.  I decided stars would be too crafty and a pain in the you know what to do. So i thought maybe stripes would work. 

I used a large Gutterman thread spool to draw my circles with a navy sharpie. The stripes are done with a red/orange paint pen. I used frosted shrinky dink paper. Size wise I wanted 5/8ths of an inch so the starting size needs to be three times that. The stripes are 1/4 of an inch. 

I realized that 5/8ths of an inch might be too big for the collar and cuffs, so I made three that were slightly smaller. 

Next, I cut them out. I used my paper cutting shears. You need sharp scissors so get a clean edge. 

Once they were cut out, I colored the edge with the sharpie and punched the holes. I did my best to center them fir better or worse. 

To shrink them you put them in an oven ar 325 degrees Fahrenheit. I love watching them shrink. I think you could make some interesting sculptures by pulling them out mid shrink.

After a minute or two you pull them out and let them cool. Turns out my circles were more ovally. Oops!

  Here they are all together. The one that is brighter is facing the right way. The others are with the wrong side up. 

Here is a look at my outfit.  Well the back anyway. I'll show the final project later this week. Hopefully I can get some pictures of it in action. Until then, happy sewing!