ideas are free #02: Bottle~o~Buttons

~{ I’m sure that Anthropolgie stole it from somewhere too }~

I can’t lay claim to this idea because I saw it a while ago at Anthropologie. A smaller, less unique looking bottle full of antique buttons for $16.

I liked the idea but I didn’t care for the price however. In fact I don’t think I like any of Anthro’s prices but I digress.

I made this bottle for my favorite price: $0

I now have a unique item that is currently sitting on my coffee table at home. From a discarded bottle of Patron and a bin of old buttons I happened to have, I recreated the Anthropologie look and you can too!

You might not happen to have an assortment of old buttons at your disposal you might be able to procure some at a thrift store or a yard sale for just pennies. Bottles and jars are pretty easy to come by. The jar I used isn’t even old, it’s just neat looking with a fun cork. An old apothecary bottle or even a mason jar that would do quite nicely as well.

And why stop at buttons? Fill it full of something else unique that you might have ~ antique keys, dice, old fish hooks, bow ties, toy soldiers, origami swans, etc. If you try it out, take a picture and send it to me and I’ll put it here!

Advertisement

Procrastination, Victorian style.

I should be working on other things but I needed to take a break from painting so I started a new painting. I happen to have a small oval canvas lying around and me, being a chronic picture frame hoarder, had a beautiful picture frame to go with it. So in less than a half hour I came up with this:

I’ve been fascinated by Victorian style silhouettes for a few years now and have always wanted to decorate our home with them. This project, as I mentioned, took less than a half hour to do, cost me $0 (that because I happened to already have the materials), and took a very small amount of skill to do. You don’t have to have an artistic bone in your body to do this. Just a steady hand. I think in the near future I’ll do a step-by-step tutorial on how to make one yourself.

So now…back to work.