Guest Post: Easter Button Art with Lacey!

Hi y’all! I am thrilled to be guest-hosting again for Auntie Lolo’s Crafts today. I am Lacey Camp, a life-long crafter, who has now become a blog and Pinterest addict! I have always been inspired by Lois’ button crafts here on Auntie Lolo Crafts! When trying to come up with a new tutorial for a button craft, I looked back at her Easter craft from last year, A Button Egg and Stuffed Bunnies. I can’t improve upon her button egg tutorial or craft and I’m not trying to. I’ve decided to do homage to the Queen of Button Crafts – Lois! When trying to come up with an idea, I was inspired by the felt bunnies she made last year to stand beside her Easter egg. I used the template from those bunnies – originating at Sandy’s Creations,  I reduced it on my copier, as seen by the dimensions in the template below.

I found all my supplies at JoAnn’s except for the frames. I always buy my frames at Hobby Lobby. While you can sew your project onto any kind of fabric, I prefer using embossed felt which can be found at all the craft stores right along with regular felt sheets. Most of the buttons for my bunny came from my Grandmother’s old buttons. As a matter of fact, her covered coat button is in the middle of the bottom of the bunny’s body. I remember Grandmother wearing that coat! That memory alone makes this bunny extra special to me! I would really urge you to use all different shades of brown for your bunny in order for it to have a good dimension. You’ll notice that I even have some light tan buttons with dark brown edges on them as well. The chocolate browns to the light tans are what will give your bunny a life of its own. 

I wanted my bunny to fit into a 5x7 frame because I had already done a button egg to stand alongside it in another 5x7 frame. Since I had already made my egg, I used it to figure out the scale of the bunny.

I then placed my bunny template onto my embossed felt and, using my disappearing ink marker, I traced the template. Next, I glued down my first row of buttons. I have tried hot glue and about burned my fingers off (plus it left too much on the button and made it hard to sew through the holes later on). After experimenting, I have found that E6000 glue works much better for me. I squirt out a glob onto a paper plate then use a toothpick to glue a TINY bit to the button - just enough on the edge to hold it down so that I can sew through it later. The E6000 is not instant but it’s very fast and I prefer it. I don’t normally put bows onto my button crafts but I decided this chocolate bunny needed to have one around its neck. Since I wanted it to literally tie around its neck, I actually placed the bow before I glued the buttons so that I would wind up with the look that I was going for.

Once you have your primary row of buttons and the shape that you desire, there is no reason to glue anymore. I just start filling in the holes until I am happy with the finished product. I sew my buttons on with a 3-strand ply of embroidery floss. I usually use contrasting colors so that the thread will show. I decided to just stick with a chocolate for this bunny. I also decided that, since I wanted these two 5x7s as a grouping, I needed to “marry” them so I sewed a matching bow to the front of my egg. What do you think?

Here is my St. Patrick’s Day shamrock. I had some trouble with the felt wrinkling so I went back to Lois’ button egg tutorial and used her method to stretch my felt and hold it better. This is the only button craft I have done so far that required that step. I had no problem stretching the others. The embossed felt has a nice weight of its own and, until this shamrock, has been able to bear the weight of the buttons.

I struggled with my shamrock shape until my daughter, Emily, showed me the way she had done hers. She literally shaped three small hearts with her hands then added the stem! Emily and I have done all of our button crafts together and have had a great time experimenting with different shapes and sizes. Even though we do them together, they never look the same. That’s one of the many things I love about crafting!

How many shamrock buttons can you find below? You should see six of them.

Finally, here is my Valentine’s Day heart. I used three different colors of embroidery floss to sew on these buttons as I used pink to red buttons and felt I needed the different contrasting threads on them. I also decided to put one silver heart button off-center to the right, just for a nice bit of drama. Emily did her heart in pink, red and white then she framed it in white. Hers had a totally different look. Mine looks a bit Victorian in the glossy black frame. Emily’s looked far sweeter in a modern white frame. You can see all of our crafts together on my Pinterest board!

Thanks for reading today! If you loved it, please pin it! Should you have any questions or comments, please leave them here and I will respond through Auntie Lolo. I will be guest-hosting on Auntie Lolo’s Crafts again this month and hope you will join me then as well.