Michelle Mach's Button Blog Hop!

A lot of people don't know that before I made jewelry, I had a small business making greeting cards.  I collected vintage papers and fabrics, layered them together, and then adorned them with vintage buttons.  They sold well at antique stores and boutiques, but I'm here to tell you -- I just couldn't make a living that way.

Some of my more contemporary buttons.

Fast forward a bit and now I make jewelry for a living -- but I still have buckets of buttons.  Jars and tins and bowls and bins of buttons.  Love love love buttons.  So when Michelle Mach started a Button Blog Hop, I was all for it.

My partner was Melinda Orr.  She has a boat-load of talent.  She actually MADE the buttons she sent me.  Not only does she make buttons, she makes jewelry -- leather, metal, clay -- be sure to visit her Etsy store by clicking here.

Buttons I was sent, photo courtesy of Melinda Orr

Our task for the Button Hop was to make a piece of jewelry with a button we received.  I decided to use an etched copper button she sent.  It has a gentle curve, and she adorned it with three tiny beads in orange, lime, and burgundy, and it has a ring shank on the back.

To make the button a bracelet link, I made a loop in a piece of heavy-gauge copper wire, loaded the wire with some large seed beads, anchored the shank with daisy spacers, and filled in the rest of the wire with seed beads, up to the edge of the button, and made another wrapped loop.  The seed beads were just the right width to keep the button from spinning.

For the rest of the bracelet, I decided to be completely eclectic and chose a different bead for each link.  Lampwork, vintage copper, contemporary beads -- they all work, I think.

And now, you get to visit the rest of the hop -- and you'll want to for more reasons than they're awesome!  For every comment you leave on a blog, you get a chance to win a set of buttons from Michelle Mach.  That's a comment on EACH blog, not 25 comments on ONE blog!  So have fun!

1. Cat - Boo Beads

2. Cindy - Sweet Bead Studio

3. Cory - Art with Moxie

4. Cyndi - Beading Arts

5. Dita - Alankarshilpa

6. Donna, Marti, and Michelle - Beads & Books

7. Erin - Treasures Found

8. Hope - Crafty Hope

9. Inca - Zerenity Design

10. Katrine - Army of Sock Monsters

11. Krista - French Elegant Jewelry

12. Kristie - Artisan Clay

13. Linda D. - Lutka and Co.

14. Linda L. - Linda's Bead Blog

15. Lody - Lody's Beadworks

16. Lori - Pretty Things  (you are here!)

17. Loretta - Loretta's Boutique

18. Malin - Beading by Malin de Koning

19. Mary - MK's Creative Musings

20. Maryanne - Zingala's Workshop

21. Melinda - Melinda Orr Metal & Clay Jewelry Designs

22. Saskia - Perlendistel

23. Shannon - For My Sweet Daughter

24. Shirley - Beads and Bread

25. Stephanie - Confessions of a Bead Hoader

Lori Anderson creates jewelry for her web site, Lori Anderson Designs, and wrote the blog An Artist's Year Off.  She's also a contributor to Art Bead Scene.  She is also the creator of the Bead Soup Blog Party.