Embroidered Button Earrings

Although it's now Thursday (where do the weeks keep going). I had an amazing weekend mainly because my bestie/sister returned from a two week holiday on Sunday so we had a catch-up shopping trip/smoothie drinking session. I also had a lovely coffee morning with old friends, bliss. The other reason was due to me having a major button bargain on Saturday morning- I bought 4kg of buttons for £3!! That meant five hours of blissful sorting on Saturday afternoon (I should have been finishing a knitting project but that's a different story).

Amongst my treasure trove there were a lot of fabric covered, shank- backed buttons and most of which were in pairs. This gave me the inspiration to make some into earrings. By gluing an earring finding to the back of each the jobs a good'un in about 60 seconds flat but I wanted something individual so decided to embroider a simple design on each using embroidery cotton and satin stitch.

To make them you need:
A pair of fabric buttons
Embroidery cotton
Sewing needle
A pair of earring posts with backs
Scissors
Glue
Piece of paper (at least as big as the buttons)
Pen

Make a stencil by drawing around one of the buttons then draw and cut out your chosen design. I went for a simple heart so folded the paper in half to cut the heart.

Using the stencil draw the design onto the button. I used a pen whose ink would be visible but not startling obvious so was not the easiest to pick up on the photograph.

Split 2 strands of the cotton and thread onto your needle, with the needle in the middle giving your cotton 4 strands of thickness. Sew the first stitch from the centre of the heart down to the tip at the bottom, do not completely draw the thread through but leave a millimetre or so protruding- this will be hidden under the satin stitch and means there is no need for an unsightly knot.

Following the outline and using satin stitch (http://www.wikihow.com/Satin-Stitch) "fill in" your design.

Once the design is complete, sew a long stitch under the design and cut the cotton. Repeat the process for the second button.

Glue and earring post to the back of each. The buttons I chose had a piece of material as the method for sewing them onto something. I cut this way in order to glue the posts to a more secure surface. If your button has a shank snap this off.

Once the glue has dried completely, you're all done!
I now plan to make a pair in every colour.
Until next time craft in earnest, Craftin' Ernest x