scrapbooking with my vintage buttons

I love to collect vintage buttons ... and I'm always looking for ways to get them out of the vintage canning jars I store them in and onto my art.

I was inspired by some posts that I've been reading this week at Scrapbook & Cards Today blog. Summer Fullerton has been using buttons in her projects and I thought that I'd share with you some of the pages from my scrapbook(s) that include my vintage buttons.

The first picture is one of my daughters, Robyn, when she was little and still liked to pose for Mommy!

This layout was done a few years ago but the picture was taken about 17 years ago. It was one of my favourite pictures of my younger brother with my daughter, Haley, when she was a few months old.

... as you can see I like to hand and machine sew on my pages - I love to make the stitching part of the design.

I can never pass up a container of pearl buttons at the second hand store or antique store ... I used a few of them here on this layout featuring my daughter Robyn playing with a friend's son one rainy afternoon at the cottage.

This layout features a large vintage button at the top and three smaller buttons at the bottom. I used a series of summer pictures from the cottage to work with the words that I added to each photo.

I love this saying ...

"Dance as though no one is watching.

Love as though you have never been hurt before.

Sing as though no one can hear you.

Live as though heaven is on earth."

here's another shot of this layout at an angle so you can see the button details.

One last page ... I love this layout ... the colours were inspired by a project that I was working on at the time for April Cornell. I did a number of marketing, visual merchandising and licencing projects for April a few years ago and this was one of the pictures from a photo shoot that we did in Canada. We used one of my friend's baby as a model in the clothing and on the linens. Although I used vintage buttons on my page, they reminded me of buttons that April would use in her products ...

... they also served another purpose ... to hold the ribbons that I wrapped around a painted chipboard letter in place!

I hope that I have inspired you to do some scrapbooking, take some photos of your kids or do something with the buttons you have been saving for a special project.

before I go ... I wanted to share this photo that I tore out of a wedding magazine last year for inspiration ... another great idea for using buttons in a creative way. Wouldn't this be cute on a summer hat! I bought a bunch of coloured buttons at Scrapfest in the spring and I'm saving this project for a rainy day at the cottage this summer with the girls. I'll let you know how it goes!