The business of buttons.

Don't you hate losing a button?  I avoid having to sew those little suckers back on like the plague.  Must have been a childhood sewing lesson gone wrong, but it's been on the 'try to avoid doing' list for as long as I can remember.  So with all the little buttons you receive each time you purchase a shirt or coat for just such a sewing occasion you'd never think that buttons are a business.  Let me tell you, they are.  Buttons are bank! With my vision of creating button art as a business, I'm going to need to buy zillions of buttons, sell my pieces and actually bring in a profit.  It was time for me to my google on. Bulk bargain buttons, wholesale buttons, ebay, Etsy, Amazon.  No matter the search term the result was the same; Still, pretty darn expensive if you ask me.

And then I found it.  The easter egg of buttons (for those of you not hip to the tech speak that is the hidden gem of buttons.  Don't worry, I'm not cool either, but I'm married to a grand supreme geek). Dickblick.com  Yes yes, get your giggles out.   Now go to dickblick.com and search buttons.  They sell a pound of buttons for $3 and change.  Do you know how many buttons you can get with that?   A lot.  I waited for a free shipping sale (fun fact, buttons by the pound are heavy and shipping costs fall in line) and made my first investment into the button business.  Fifteen beautiful pounds of bulk assorted size and color buttons.

The day they arrived was like Christmas.  I was excited to open up the first pound and start sorting my colors.  How pretty!!!  Deep purple, bright white, hot pink, navy and baby blue, it was a hodgepodge of the rainbow.    It took me a good 30 minutes to sort the first bag, and the process didn't get any shorter as time went on.  I was excited to get a couple bags done during baby naps and let some random show on netflix play in the background.  It's like relaxing and being very busy at once.  But I have to admit, by the last pound I was over the sorting process (pinks, reds and burgundies were all melding into one color I swear it!).   And here I am now, looking at a sea of sorted colors waiting to become something beautiful.  Step one, complete.