Button, button, who's got the button?

I have been struggling to start this introduction, because I am just so dang excited. So, as most of you probably know, I have an identical twin sister named Sweetie Pumpkin Kitty, SPK, otherwise known as KellyAnn. You may have seen her comments around town. I am blessed to share my life with someone who loves crafting, art, sewing, and finding funky shizzle as much as me. We have literally been hitting thrift stores together since we were walking. (Thanks, Mama!) We are always collaborating, talking craft, getting together to do stuff, and bouncing ideas off each other. Interestingly, she and I have very different styles that intersect beautifully. We like much of the same stuff, but have totally different aesthetics. For example, we noticed that in her house, she has a lot of curved furniture and items, and everything in my house is straight lines and boxy. Hmmm...genetics are cool. ANYWAY, since I started this blog, I have been trying to convince her to share her cool crafts on here. So, today, I am so excited, because my sister finally finally agreed to share something on this blog. I'm hoping she will do this more regularly, but for now, I'm just excited about this one. Please give her lots of love and a very warm welcome.

Hey Y'all...Ang told me I should guest blog and do a tutorial for my infamous button flowers that I totally ripped off from Pinterest, which let's face it, is the whole reason Pinterest exists for me...inspiration and blatant thievery.  So I love love love flowers.  Let me just put that out there.  Except that most everyone in my family is allergy-ridden.  I buy flowers every week from Trader Joe's and 7 times out of 10, someone is allergic.  Sigh.  What's a flower-loving hippie to do?  Well, I say break out those buttons and let's get to it.

Yeah, that is what it looks like now, but how did it get that way?  Okay let's start with the very easy button/paper flower...find some interesting paper.  I used some old collage paper I had.  I was trying to do a black and white theme, but there is no reason not to use whatever appeals to you.  I cut all my flowers into four petals, but I think it would look great as a circle or pointy petals, really this ain't science.  Whatever works for you.  I cut a piece of floral wire about 6 inches long.  It's kinda pointy so I just stuck it right through that paper.  Kinda angry like.  It was freeing.

Now, Audrey, my daughter and Angie's spirit animal, and I picked some buttons in white and some in black and stacked them.  I tried to use interesting buttons that looked good together.  But one cute button will work as well.

Then you bend the floral wire and poke that sucker through the other hole of the buttons and through the paper flower.  

Now that the wire is through everything, twist it tightly around the longer piece of wire.

Now here is where I decided to go a little different.  By all means you can be done with your flower at this point, but I bought these really cute floral stems at the craft store.  They were all wrapped in a pretty green paper, and they were really sturdy.   So at this point I got the floral stem and made a loop.

Then I twisted the floral wire around the loop so the flower was secure and standing up on the floral stem.  As far as the fabric covered vase goes, Audrey and I found an old, empty Pringles can sitting around so we washed it out.  We found some pretty black and white fabric to go with our flowers.  We measured the can and added a half inch to top and bottom to fold it under so we wouldn't have fraying.

Then I applied some Mod Podge around the can, and wrapped it with the fabric.  Then I added some hemp rickrack with fabric glue because I love me some rickrack.  Small, large, pink, hemp.  It doesn't matter.  If I can add rickrack to something, I generally do.

And done...pretty button flowers for all those sneezers out there.  Unless you are allergic to adorable!!!!  Thanks, Angie for letting me share!  And thanks to Cooper Satterfield for taking pictures for me!

"Someday, I'll be a real flower."