Saturday's Shameless Self Promotion

Crafts and art projects were always a meaningful part of my life as I grew up.  I think my love of buttons and old sewing supplies had been nurtured by the long hours I spent searching through both of my grandmother's sewing boxes and fabrics.  I was very blessed to have such patient grandmothers since it must have been a big nuisance to bring out these large box just for me to dig through.  I imagine that even though I remember being careful they had to go back rearrange the mess I left.
 

From CherylLeeCorner at http://ow.ly/dyP7f

I was only about 4 or 5 years old when I started dreaming of big projects I would make once I was old enough to have my own supplies.  And now that I am grown I do have my own supplies but they are kept in plastic bins and organizers; unlike the very ornate and decorative sewing boxes I remember from my youth.


From TheCherryChic at http://ow.ly/dyP3S

Now that my children are grown I haven't machine stitched anything in years.  Although my poor husband has not seen me sew anything since we met, I will not part with my sewing machine; it still looks like new and it took me years to be able to afford such a treasure.  I had bought it right before I went back to school and my life became much more complex and busy. Prior to that I used a literal antique singer that worked beautifully for simples stitches but weighed about 50 pounds and could only go forwards and backwards.  I do miss the heavy monster because there is definitely something to be admired about that design; it was a work of beauty and art when they created those old machines.

Print is from MarianneLoMonaco at http://ow.ly/dyPcC

While I don't sew I still love to carry old sewing supplies in my shop.  It gives me a chance to hang on to a few wonderful childhood memories of old coffee cans filled with buttons, piles of fabric and fancifully decorated sewing boxes with their mysterious hidden compartments.  I hope that my items will excite the creativity in you too.



https://www.etsy.com/listing/97087657/5-vintage-wooden-spools-with-thread

https://www.etsy.com/listing/99303022/large-vintage-brass-button-shell-shape

https://www.etsy.com/listing/98062245/vintage-wood-focal-button-very-pretty



https://www.etsy.com/listing/98062335/vintage-resin-button-large-focal-piece?ref=v1_other_1

https://www.etsy.com/listing/98208391/vintage-mother-of-pearl-belt-buckle

https://www.etsy.com/listing/98977883/27-vintage-lucite-brown-faux-tortoise

Beautiful Button Bouquets An Interview With Angela's Artistic Designs

Today's lovely shop is Angela's Artistic Designs or known on ETSY as Angel9.  Angela's shop is full of her whimsical creations and beautiful bouquets made of buttons.  As many of you already know I simply love buttons and I absolutely love bouquets so imagine the fun I had interviewing this very creative artist. 

She also has many delightful antiques and vintage collectibles featured in her shop.  So, please check out her shop and networks that are listed below, like, re post, tweet, etc. you will not be sorry that you did. 

Angela's Artistic Design

Tell me a bit about yourself……
I’ve had many careers, most of them creative including hair stylist, window decorator and preschool teacher. I have 3 grown children. I enjoyed being a mother so much! When my children were grown, I thought, “What can I do to replace all the energy that I put into mothering ? What do I love to do as much? Well, create! Children are creations and works in progress, just like art!

Apart from creating, what do you do? 

I write, dance, spend time with my children, husband and my grandson.

What first made you want to create? 
I’ve been creative since I was a child. I would get so excited looking at the craft books in the library. I remember taking one home and creating a beautiful doll from paper cone cups, construction paper and glitter. I made several and gave them to friends!

Describe your creative process? 
Mmmmm. I get an idea, like an itch. I’m so excited; I run out to get the supplies I need for this particular project. And then I’m impatient to get started, impatient with the process and I don’t feel settled until the product is complete!.

What handmade possession do you cherish most? 
I love my button bouquets! Sometimes it’s difficult to part with them!

What one piece of information would you like to know from experienced etsy sellers? 
How to be patient!

How are you promoting your work? 
Twitter, FB, my blog, handing out business cards, making cold calls to businesses, linkedin.

Where do you want to be in ten years? 
Retired and rich! Maybe on some island somewhere!

http://www.facebook.com/Angelasartistic
http://angelasartistic.blogspot.com/
http://beingaconsciousparent.wordpress.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/angelasartistic/status/9192056614303334

Don't forget to also check out my post ~ Flutterby Connection's interview and a chance to WIN 2 personalized ornaments! Go to http://butterflyintheattic.blogspot.com/2011/08/flutterby-connections-give-away.html

Meeting Dolly Madison An Amazing Young Artist

I found Dolly Madison while surfing ETSY and fell in love with her sweet little buttons and characters.  She is a very talented young lady and has been very kind to do an interview for us. 
Her lovely little shop is also featuring a special discount, 5% off with coupon code BIRRCASTLE.  Please check out the interview and Dolly's wonderful creations.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DollyMadison?ref=ss_profile

Tell me a bit about yourself……
I'm sixteen years old, and I love to work with my hands, writing, reading, and crafting. My main focus of crafting is my Etsy shop, where I sell polymer clay items, mostly buttons, but also little decorative bears (mostly custom orders for those). :) I began working with polymer clay when I was eleven, and I opened my Etsy shop in May of 2010.

Apart from creating, what do you do?
Dear me, it depends on the day! I love to read, and I have several subjects that I pay most attention to, one of which is history. I'm a genealogist, and I love to find out about my ancestors! I found lots of Irish way back there, and so I now have what you could almost call a 'hobby', finding old Irish songs and artists. I love to buy books (that's mainly what I spend my Etsy profit on) that I can feel satisfied handing down to my children and grandchildren. I desire to glorify God, and as my motto says "To enlarge the glory of the gospel!" (quote from Richard Hakluyt, puritan).

What first made you want to create?
I'm just a creative person, I suppose. :) I've been crafting as long as I can remember, and when my grandparents gave me some polymer clay one time, I immediately latched on to it and began making rather crude figures. It wasn't till April that I found my Etsy niche, which is specialty buttons. I had one set that had been custom ordered, and didn't sell, so I listed them anyway. Then I began attending BNRs and BNSs on Etsy (a selling spree system, Buy and Replace and Buy and Stay, where someone buys your item in a treasury and then they in turn get featured in your spot), and my buttons sold, and re-sold, and sold again........ Ever since then, my button making has taken off, which is really nice. But it's funny that the thing that sells best for me is the thing that I never meant to make in the first place.

Describe your creative process?
It depends on the situation. Sometimes I just sit down with my clay and start making buttons without a goal in mind or even a conceived notion as to how I want them to be---I just pick out a few colors that all the sudden stand out to me and run with it. That is always a fun process. Other times I know exactly what I want, and I fall to making them......or they turn out completely different from what I wanted. It's an adventure, and it's a very fun one. :)

How are you promoting your work?
I don't have many ways of promoting yet. Mostly I attend BNRs and that really gets the word out because it's always a great crowd and great publicity. Otherwise just getting to know folks on Etsy is a great way to get business. :) Hearting other folks' items and shops have brought me several sales, not to mention hearts and circles (Now I have switched to Etsy lingo, haven't I? ;)

Where do you want to be in ten years?
The problem to me is getting too busy. Etsy is the only source of income I have right now, and I'm not really able to devote all of my time to it. So to answer your question, I don't know if I shall be around on Etsy in ten years. :) Since I am just beginning to get sales, I will have to see if it turns out to be something I want to pursue in earnest, and if the profit is worth the effort. But I intend to have a steady income by then from some sort of home business. :)

Show Your Support! Vote For Us At THE TOP 10 TEAMS CONTEST

Please show your support by voting for the Promotional Frenzy Team that I and many other wonderful ETSY Shop owners belong to.  Each of the members of this team have posted two of their favorite times to be featured in this contest.  You will not only get a chance to show your support for small businesses and artisans but also see many beautiful and useful items. 

The winning team will receive $450 in free advertising.

Click on the widget below and vote 10's for all the items featured or as many as you can to move our team to the top!
So I will see you there!  Have a wonderful day.

Treasuries Featuring Butterfly In The Attic

Some of the wonderful people at ETSY has featured items from my shops in treasuries recently.  I would love to share their creative choices and curation.


Always End Up Wearing Grey featuring my Lavender Bath Salts



Sweetness featuring my Lavender Oatmeal Bath Sachets



Pink Lullaby featuring one of my antique postcards



Sunshine featuring my Handmade Lemon Grass Sachet Mix



Summer is Just Around The Corner featuring my vintage saucy seaside postcard



and last but not least
I Love You Mom featuring my vintage plastic buttons



Thank you to all my ETSY friends for your support.

I...L O V E...Love BUTTONS

I have always loved buttons.  When I talk about the wonderful time I had as a child looking through my Grandmother's can of buttons, some else will share their fond memories of buttons too.  It is funny how something that small can be so precious to so many different people.  I believe that these loved-ones giving this simple gift of time and sharing has sparked many enthusiasts to create or collect buttons. 

You can find hundreds of wonderful buttons throughout the internet.  One of my favorite sites is: http://www.vintagebuttons.net/ccsbtns.html   Not only does she have a large selection of vintage buttons to choose from she is a wealth of information for the novice button collector.

I have found several magnificent artists on ETSY that will fashion buttons from unusual materials or create beautiful shapes and designs.  I have featured several of them in my treasuries below but there are far too many to include everyone.  There are also several shops that feature vintage buttons including my own The Butterfly's Buttons at http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheButterflysButtons?ref=pr_shop   I love collecting buttons and becoming a source for others has been great fun and a good learning experience for me.

Many crafters have found unique and beautiful ways of utilizing vintage buttons by creating jewelry, collars, decorations and much more.  I am so impressed with their creativeness and I would like to share some of my favorite pieces.   But before I do I must share a really neat idea that my husband found in a magazine (I don't know which one it came from, sorry.)  Someone has used buttons to keep from losing their stud earrings.  The simply find a button the right size about 1/2 inch and they thread each earring through the holes putting the backs on to secure them.  They place them in the same jewelry box but this way they can easily see and find the matching set.  I love this idea it is so functional yet so creative.


How Cute is this?





Found at ETSY shop Alterity http://www.etsy.com/shop/Alterity?ref=seller_info



Found at ETSY Shop Leslie Janson at http://www.etsy.com/shop/lesliejanson?ref=seller_info



Found at ETSY Shop J B Ebert at http://www.etsy.com/shop/jbEbert?ref=seller_info



Found at ETSY Shop Motley Couture at http://www.etsy.com/shop/Motleycouture?ref=seller_info
They are having a sale today!



Found at ETSY Shop Altered Ephemera at http://www.etsy.com/shop/TracyReehal?ref=seller_info

 Sunday's Treasuries




Buttons From Heaven



Oh How Shapely You Are...



A Little Bit of This



Beautiful Beautiful Buttons



And last but not least please don't forget to vote for my lovely purple lavender sachets. I am #5 under Butterfly In The Attic. To vote go to:
http://byhandgiveaways.blogspot.com/search/label/saturday
 I appreciate your support

Saturday's Treasury

In honor of starting my new ESTY Store The Butterfly's Buttons I decided to create a wonderful treasury featuring some of the many wonderful finds using or about Buttons.   Some are even edible!!!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did putting it together.

How I Met The Butterly In The Attic

Most of my fondest memories are of an old Victorian house where I grew up.  It was a big house and one of my favorite rooms in it was an upstairs balcony. It looked like the one I had seen Juliette calling to Romeo or the one Rapunzel had let down her hair from.  Unfortunately next to this balcony was a very intimidating door that opened to "the attic." 

  

At one time I had tried to open the door and had been unable to reach the milky white doorknob.  My mother watched me stretch for a while and then simply said "Honey, you don't want to go in there.  It is just full of old stuff; it is dusty, dark and no place to play.  I don't even know what is in there anymore."  

Being a small girl and with my imagination growing over months I had visions of this dark dreadful room.  A place where a small child could get lost and never find their way back out.  I also took "I don't even know what is in there anymore" to mean that there was some kind of dreadful man-eating animal lurking in one of those dusty corners.  Starving to death just waiting for the day I would accidently bump into the door hard enough, fall in, get lost and satisfy his hunger.  Why else would a room be called an attic?  So to prevent my demise I would, naturally, run full speed down the hall to reach the safety of my little balcony.  Not to say that I didn't have an occasional close call when wearing slippery socks but for almost a year all was well.  Until that life changing day…

 I was entertaining my friend "Romeo" who was not enchanted with the role he was coerced into playing.  As he escaped the balcony he stopped right in front of the great door of doom.  "What's in there?"  I tried to sound as if I didn't care at all and said "just stuff."    "Mom said that it is dark and dusty in there and there’s nothing to play with."  Romeo's freckled face turned to me with a mischievous grin "what, are you scared?"  Of course I was a sweet little girl but hearing this come from a boy, it was on!  "No! I'm not scared I just can't reach it."  He smiled with his hand on the knob; I was doomed.

The door creaked as it opened, it smelled like my great grandmother's apartment and it was very dark.  The first thing I noticed was that it looked like the rest of the rooms in the house but with more boxes and it was dusty.  I couldn't see where any man-eating animal would be lurking but I kept an eye open.  As my vision adjusted I notice a little window that was glowing with light from the wintery Midwest morning. 

Then! Out of the corner of my eye a fast movement happened so suddenly that even though I was only 4 years old I thought for sure I was having a heart attack.  I knew it; the man-eating animal was going to drag me in deeper and it would all be "Romeo's" fault.  

As my heart slowed and I could feel nothing dragging me away I ventured a longer look.  I smiled it was amazing; in the middle of the frozen winter was a beautiful bright blue butterfly fluttering at the light in the window.  I made my way over to the sweet little creature and watched it sit on the sill with its wings gently opening and closing. 

After that day my mother would help me bring my new little friend a dish of orange slices.  And each day we would spend time going through the dusty boxes of postcards and pictures and she would tell about the faraway places from a time long ago.  We would dress up in old hats and gloves and don the most beautiful rhinestone jewelry.  My balcony was still one of my favorite places but thanks to a little butterfly I found an entirely new world.  One that was full of mystery, fancy parties, faraway travels and the prettiest little things that people wore and used long before I was born.  My life has been full of wonderful discoveries some are old, some are new, but nothing will compare to the butterfly in the attic.

Welcome to Butterfly In The Attic

Like my store vision, the visions for this blog is to create an avenue for individuals like myself to bring back some of the beauty and uniqueness to our world.  Most of us have become satisfied to ooh and ah or gasp at what we view on television, magazines or the internet and that is as far as we go.  We seem to have become a society that is satisfied to only see things from a distance and forget all about our other senses.  As simple as the act of collecting or having a collection seems, this one small hobby can stimulate many senses, entice an idol mind into thinking and can open doors to new experiences one leading into the next.

My store and this blog will be focused on those things that I have found great pleasure in since I was a child; my collections and my craft.   I was greatly blessed as a child with grandparents that found my intense fascination with “things” a gift and something to nurture.  My interests were wide and expansive at that time; from wanting to collect bugs (of all things) to rocks, buttons to postcards, lace to pressed flowers, postage stamps to nature seals and on and on...  Fortunately for myself I have narrowed it down a little; probably to some, very little. 

I have collected postcards since my grandmother gave me my first antique German greetings.  Later I found that in every picture postcard was an escape, a message, and place that someday I must see for myself.

Haven't been here yet.

but...........

I have been to here.

As a child looking at this postcard during the wintery months in the Midwest I could only dream of visiting these places now I live on the West Coast.  Also important information to parents; postcard collecting, if presented in the right way, will keep your kids quiter for longer than any TV show or video game ;)

I love buttons, old and new; for such a simple item they can be created with such beauty, along with such a variety of materials and at one time you could identify a persons’ class status by the buttons on their clothes.  Now you can still determine someone’s class status; pant button done vs. pant button undone.  I find that often it is quite relaxing to match the many hundreds of buttons that I have and imagine what beautiful or handsome creations the new owners will create.

Gems and minerals have held a deep intrigue with me since I was young also.  It never seemed to fail that as a child I just happened to look down just at the right time and there would be the most gorgeous crystal or fascinating fossil at my feet. 

Amethyst I had the great pleasure to have found. 

Crafting with natural products brings me great joy.  They make me feel very connected to the natural world and are very spiritual.  I hope to help bring the same joy to others with my products.

A lovely Lavender Sachet Mix I create

Finally, but not the least by any manner of speaking, I love collecting anything vintage, pretty and those items that may simply be unique.   Unfortunately for our new generations and even beginning in mine, we have become a “throw-away” society.  Everything is made for a onetime use; it has no character, no energy, and no charm.  Yes I have become as accustomed to many of these conveniences as much as the next person but it is a real tragedy that most of us have no other reason to save a container or a razor other than to reduce the landfill.  Kudos to all of us that are conscious of that but what ever happened to the day when we would keep a coffee can just because it was pretty.  No wonder why we have to resort to building towns on top of dump sites.  Let the collectors of the world help bring the beauty back into our everyday lives.  Say good bye to the mundane one - use lighters, razors, and room freshener spray and hello to a reason to recycle.

While I have been a collector and crafter for years I am constantly searching for new knowledge and better ways to find treasures, preserve and organize them.  As I learn I want to share this information with you and to provide the readers with a positive source of information.  I would like to focus on the art of collecting along with the art of creating a positive living space and environment for ourselves.  Living in a clean and organized space but one that is full of intrigue and character. 

Organizing is key because that is one way that we keep the line of distinguished collector and not find ourselves featured on the next episode of Horders.

Until next time... and don't forget to visit me at my store ButterflyInTheAttic. http://www.etsy.com/shop/ButterflyInTheAttic