Polymer Clay Buttons

Last week I got an email from a lady who has been "gifted" with some of my buttons by a mutual friend.  I was very honored to learn that she'll be using one of the buttons in a piece of wearable quilted art designs that she's submitting in a jurying.  It's good that she got a match to her fabric choices as the buttons were made probably before the fabrics were chosen.  That leads me to pose a question about matching.  How matchy-matchy do things have to be? 

I used to be one of those gals who had to match purse and shoes right down to the cobra skins and unusual shades of turquoise.  I believe I once had seven wearable pair of shoes in that color because they had to "go" with the outfits I was wearing. Now, I still love to have 'different' colors of shoes and purses, but gone are the days when I wouldn't think of wearing those forest green shoes with the two-toned emerald handbag.  Heck...I am lucky if I can even find said forest green shoes.  And as for which handbag I'll be using, well, it's the one that's got the car keys in it.

I think for buttons, it's a little less 'laissez-faire' but still, there's a little more latitude when utilizing a hand-crafted button on a purse, sweater, jacket or whatever.  Of course, I could make drab, go with everything buttons in beige or off-white, but what would be the point?  I make buttons in strange and sometimes unusual colors because I CAN.  I figure if I am just going to cookie-cut some shapes out of some color of polymer clay straight out of the package, why bother?  I must admit that several of the buttons on this page are similar in style, particularly the ones with the 'frames'.  But I like making that kind, and feel they are versatile enough to be a match for lots of different projects.

The other concern I'd like to address is the actual color that appears in the pictures after they've been scanned.  For example, the button in the top right hand corner is really not at all the color it is in actuality.  The background of the for-real one is an ochre-gold color.  And of course you cannot detect the greeny-brown 'antiquing' that's in the second from the left in the top row.  It's oh-so subtle in the background circles...almost looks a bit like an ancient reptilian skin. 

I posted these buttons in response to a couple of requests by folks who wanted to see more buttons.  I also had a digital image taken of the same sheet of buttons.  I am going to post it in a subsequent blog and perhaps the colors there will be truer...or maybe they won't!  Of course the best is to see them in person.  For that, they will be available in my fall shows.  I'll be posting that list too, soon. 

Addendum:  added on the following morning...  Here is the posting of the digital image of the aforementioned buttons.  See the difference?

The colors on this are much truer to the originals so in future I will be posting digital photos rather than scans of things that have to be in the way the movie Sex and the City II ended...with  True Colors.