Today's button Monday celebrates the beauties from the deep, the shell button. Whether you know them as Mother of Pearl (MOP), Abalone, Pearls...they're all beautiful. Some are intricately carved, some plain, some shiny white, others smoky grey, and yet others have that amazing iridescence that makes us see green, and pink in that plain white button.
A carved beauty in a "whistle" shape.
One of my favorites, a shank-backed intricately carved lovely next to a highly iridescent piece.
This one is amazing in person.
So detailed for something so small, and with a beautiful pink iridescence against the dark grey shell.
The mother of pearls are some of my favorite to work with. This is a button bouquet I made back in 2008. I had happened upon a button jar that was filled with the most amazing shell buttons I had ever seen and worked many of those buttons into this piece. (click on the pics to see them a little larger) I'll tell ya, if I hadn't made this for such a sweet person, it would have been really hard to let it go.
The mother of pearls are some of my favorite to work with. This is a button bouquet I made back in 2008. I had happened upon a button jar that was filled with the most amazing shell buttons I had ever seen and worked many of those buttons into this piece. (click on the pics to see them a little larger) I'll tell ya, if I hadn't made this for such a sweet person, it would have been really hard to let it go.
Many of the shell buttons we covet today came from clams harvested from the Mississippi river. The same river that runs right through my town. In my search for information about these "hometown" buttons, I found a website that you might enjoy.
Karipearls has some great information about the buttons created in her town in Iowa.
She had a chance to tour an old button factory, left as it had been when it closed its doors 50 years ago. What an adventure! Who among us wouldn't love to do that? You can read about it here:
Button Factory Tour: http://www.karipearls.com/pearl-button-factory-tour.html
Happy Monday!
5 comments:
Beautiful post and beautiful buttons! That is such a neat idea with the bouquet. Lovely. :)
Have a great day,
Bonnie
Oh so very pretty.
I wish I could go see an old button factory in person!
oh my gosh, all those yummy buttons !!!
I spoted one that's a twin (or more !) button of the one you used on the blue flower brooch I bought from your shop. Gorgeous !! xoxo have a fab week, sweet girl !
These are absolutely gorgeous! You have a wonderful blog here. It's nice to meet an artist in Minnesota! (I'm in Fargo, ND.)
i think i died and just went to button heaven
and it was good
Post a Comment