I have just "inherited" my mother's button tin

[SoupDragon]

[happy sigh]

I say "inherited" but she is alive and well :o

I am rummaging through it looking for the old favourites that were there when I was a child...

[SoupDragon]

{bounce]

I've just bought a 6lb quality street tin full of buttons at the local car boot sale :o £5.

[SoupDragon]

Not weird at all.

Although you are probably not asking the right people...

[Guerrillacrochet]

What a lovely thread (geddit!).

Another button tin horror story... I was talking to my Nan about crafts and asked about the button tin and she said she'd THROWN IT AWAY. VOLUNTARILY. It was a small 1960's Quality Street tin full of magical things and both my brother and I loved the sorting of the buttons (recall it was pirate booty on several occassions).

The Grandad Cardie buttons were always known as football buttons in our house.....

I had no idea people were flogging tins on Ebay though! Is it weird to buy one and have it sent to my Mum's- we're abroad for the next year... it could be waiting for me when I get back!

[HellesBelles396]

my aunt's button barrel is a wooden barrel and contains thin bootstraps for small children (me thirty years ago ) to make button necklaces.

as she has no daughter, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for when she stops knitting.

[SoupDragon]

Oh, I have in the past. three times

[McKayz]

Do it!

[SoupDragon]

Must
Not
Look
On
Ebay

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

[UniqueAndAmazing]

oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh

[McKayz]

I've got it!

It's full of buttons, old zips, needles so had to be careful.

There's some lovely metal ones with what looks like a coat of arms.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

ooh yes I love the leather criss cross ones

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Someone gave me one of those criss cross Grandad ones this week, the first in my collection

[NumTumDeDum]

Oooh. I just found some nice tins of biscuits in M&S. Biscuits and a nice tin. Win win.

[MouseThatRoars]

Yeah, that's the one!

[SoupDragon]

Yes! I think they're called "leather crisscross ones that go on grandad's cardi" :o

[MouseThatRoars]

Oooh, so lovely to find this thread! I inherited my MiL's button tins. The tins themselves are wonderful 1950s designs and the buttons are fabulous. DD (5) loves them. She creates button pictures, photographs them then starts again. Hoping to do something more permanent with some of them, like a button necklace or decorations on a dress. Some of my favourite ones are the leather criss-cross ones that go on Grandads' cardis - do you know what I mean? they must have a name?!

[UniqueAndAmazing]

nooooooo!
my mum bought that mag- she crocheted the squares but didn't use them. she donated them to woolly hugs.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

Arghhh - don't entice me onto the Fabricland site - I have already spent £13.50 on yarn online today. And it isonly the fact that I got rid of a bagful of yarn to the charity shop that made dh ok with the idea of buying more.

And I know that sounds barking (which is fair enough, if you know me ) but the yarn I got rid of was nasty-feeling cheap acrylic yarn that came free with a magazine (one of those ones with a blanket where you knit a square each fortnight - but I never knitted the squares ), and I have bought 6x100g balls of yarn in turquoise, sunshine yellow, cerise, purple, orange and navy, to crochet a granny-square scarf - or maybe a blanket (but I would need more yarn).

[UniqueAndAmazing]

it's not hungry caterpillar

it's ice creams.

[UniqueAndAmazing]

I've just been coveting a sewing box on www.fabricland.co.uk/

the big one at the bottom with Hungry caterpillar all over it.

I don't need a sewing box for sewing but for thread reels, as mine is round and my threads are messy (and slightly overflowing now - the lid no longer sits on)

[UniqueAndAmazing]

he does the ironing?

oh wow, that's a tough decision then

[stealthsquiggle]

Sewing box is indeed very cool - not only does it contain a marvellous selection of bits and bobs, but it is, in itself, a gorgeous wooden box with lots of little lidded compartments . I cried when I thought one of the lids had been lost in a house move, but it turned up months later.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

I agree - all those little bits of this and that in a sewing box. My mum's sewing box was a boring plastic box that lived on the bottom of a trolley by her chair at the dining room table - so it was readily to hand when she needed to perform a repair.

But her button tin is lovely - a vintage biscuit tin, I think - and I covet that tin and will fight dsis to the death for it if she wants it too.

[SoupDragon]

An inherited sewing box is just as good I think

[stealthsquiggle]

I missed out on inheriting one - one grandmother who didn't have one (that I know of - possibly DM has one hoarded somewhere) and the other GM was my father's stepmother, and the oldest of 3 sisters - so she had their family tin, which went in turn to her sisters/nieces. I did inherit her sewing box though, which I treasure (including tin of pins).

However, my DM bought me a tin of chocolates from France, and the tin is actually printed with buttons and says "ma boite a boutons" on it, so I have started my own . There were a few buttons lurking in the bottom of my inherited box, so they give the collection some history. I also have some gorgeous sets of fabric covered buttons from Japan which are still on their cards and will be for ever until I find a good use for them.