Here's what I've been up to this past week.  I finally got over being horribly sick for two weeks so I was enjoying not being in bed or stuck in front of a computer.

I worked on a new hair clip idea and love the first few examples.  I've made five so far and now I need to go shopping for some more jumbo buttons! Let me know what you think, they'll be going in the shop this week as soon as I get some better pictures.

coral, aqua and grey feather clip

plum, goldenrod and grey feather clip

here's what it looks like on for size reference

sported some serious sparkles

Chuy in his new Halloween bandana being lazy

helped redecorate our Sunday school room | chalkboard paint is awesome!

beautiful downtown from my drive to work this morning

more buttons...

I spent this afternoon going through my new button collection, sorting by color, taking them off their old cards and removing those silly metal loops they put them on the cards with (i hate those so much!) My mom got me some 1/2 pint milk bottles to put some of my double point needles in this weekend, and MeMaw found two more around her house that she gave me. When I was sorting my buttons I put them in the bottles and loved how they looked too much to take them out. So I'm still on the hunt for something to hold my double points, ha.

Now I'm racking my brain for projects to show off these buttons. I already have some earring plans in the making!

These are the lovely flowers David got me for valentine's day last week. Can you believe how pretty they still look? I brought them to my apartment from Austin and split them into 3 vases. I think the purple ones are my fave. After I arranged them I realized they formed a heart :)

button button who's got the button?

I do!

More than one actually. We went to see MeMaw yesterday to celebrate her 75th birthday with bbq and some shopping in town. When she was here last time she had mentioned letting me go through her vast button collection and picking out all the ones I wanted. I reminded her and out came 6 tins full of buttons. Some were still on their original cards but most were loose. MeMaw, my mom and I spent at least an hour going through them all, picking out all kinds of fun, interesting and colorful buttons.

I can't wait to get home and organize them all by color and style. I'm a nerd about buttons, it's silly :)

Why does my MeMaw have over a thousand buttons? She used to be a professional seamstress. She made all my mom's, aunt's and uncle's clothing. She also sewed for people in town. My mom grew up making all her doll's clothes and began making her own clothes soon after. As I was growing up many of my dresses were made by MeMaw or my mom. My mom went on to make all my prom dresses.

I learned to sew from watching them and eventually trying my hand at it. I started making thing by hand and then moved on to using my mom's machine. I made my first purse about 4 years ago and haven't looked back since. I hope to someday teach my daughter about the love of sewing and the enjoyment that comes from holding something you made from scratch.

There are still many more buttons for me to go back and explore through. I think I mostly took all the brightly colored ones. MeMaw told me her children learned their colors by playing with all these buttons. I love it!