Thursday, August 21, 2008

Covering those Pesky 1/2" Buttons

I make and sell button bracelets, rings and ear rings at the Country Lane General Store. Each bracelet takes 12 buttons! After making about 50 buttons one day, by hand my thumb was numb, I still had a lot more to go. So I looked on the internet for something that you could use to do the covering for you, I think the cheapest machine I saw was well over $100, unbelievable, no way was I going to spend that much.

Out to the garage to figure out something to use to push the 2 parts together neatly and efficiently and saving my thumb from going numb. This is what I came up with.

This is my drill press with a dowel rod inserted into the bit holder. The dowel rod fits perfectly inside the 1/2" button back. You do not have to turn the drill press on, just position your button under the dowel rod and pull down on the handle. This set up would work for larger buttons also, just attach a larger dowel rod to the smaller one, or a piece of wood cut to match the back of the button you want to cover. I plan on using this set up mainly for the smaller 1/2" buttons, the larger buttons I don't make large quantities of, but if that changes I now have a set up I can use.

Here are 2 samples of my button bracelets.

I hope you find this useful!

Hugs,

Renee

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