Button, Button...whose got the button ?

picture via google search

Do  you remember that game...or does that give away my age?  I remember playing this when I was in first grade.  Our teacher would sit us in a circle, and we would pass a button around our back while chanting.  The teacher would call STOP and we would have to figure out who had the button!  Well...it was fun at the time!

luualla.com

I have always loved buttons!  I think my fascination began due to many hours of playing with my grandmother's button tin.  It was full of beautiful buttons of all different colors, sizes, & shapes.  I would stack them, compare them, make patterns with them, even make up games with them.  I wonder if children still play with buttons today?  Probably not!

mypolkadotteapot.com via google search

I recently read a little about the history of buttons.  The earliest known button is supposedly about 5000 years old.  They actually began more as an adornment worn like jewelry than for actual utility.  After the Button Makers Guild was formed in 1250 AD, there were actually laws prohibiting poor people from owning buttons made of certain materials (which they couldn't afford anyway).  Snobby rich people!  In the 1300's people went so crazy over buttons that some garments were totally covered in buttons...each with its own buttonholes!  Can you imagine getting dressed in the mornings?

Lots of people out there evidently collect buttons...and some pay big bucks for even a single button.  (I doubt I'll get that addicted.)  You can Google and find all sorts of information if you are interested, including www.iwantbuttons.com. 

I was very fortunate awhile back to be given a wonderful collection of buttons that had been collected by possibly both of my husband's grandmothers and my mother-in-law. 

Then my mother gave me a lot too....and these were even contained in a very old tin that I remember her keeping them in!  I love my buttons!

Some of my collection are very interesting and I'm sure very old.  I've tried to find out some info on some of them but haven't discovered anything yet.

A few years ago I even made this bracelet out of a length of elastic and various buttons I had

Wouldn't these be cute?

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I sometimes pull out my buttons when my granddaughter is here because I hope that she too will fall in love with these beautiful pieces of metal, cloth, & plastic.  Maybe I will even teach her...

Button, Button...whose got the button ?

second twirl via pinterest.com