Making buttons from Fimo

(Second button related post in a row, heh.)

I bought a new-to-me cord jacket at a charity shop in Portobello while visiting Edinburgh recently* and it had big feature buttons on it.

I very much liked the idea of feature buttons but unfortunately I didn’t like the actual buttons used. A trip to my usual haberdashery in Leeds revealed it would cost about £18 to replace them with my favourite big buttons from there – because it’s double breasted and so needs a billion of the buggers – so I thought I’d try making some myself.

A Fimo purchase off eBay later, I made myself some gloriously green buttons last night.

I played with a few different shapes/styles but I went with big, flat and simple in the end. I got seven big buttons (the six I need plus a spare) and two little ones out of a 56g block of Fimo. I divided the clay up and rolled it into a ball in my hands to loosen it up then squished it using a coffee can lid, with a layer of cling film inbetween so the clay wouldn’t stick. Then when it was the desired diameter and thickness, I placed a brass curtain ring on the clay, squished with the can lid again, then poked the holes with a cocktail stick. Twenty minutes in the oven later, my buttons were ready to rock and roll.

They’re not perfect but they’ll neither am I, so they’ll do :)

(Click for bigger pictures.)

* as I raved about on Things To Do Today, the Beach House Cafe there is AWESOME. Go! Go! Go!