Vintage Button and Sterling Silver bracelet

 

 

We’re celebrating a friend’s birthday this weekend, and I can’t wait to Saturday to arrive! I always like to give handmade gifts when I can, so I started rolling some ideas around on what to make. I took a look at the birthday gal’s Pinterest boards for some inspiration. She’s a busy mom, so she doesn’t have a lot of extra time for herself, and she will tell you that even if she had the time she’s not crafty. (I know otherwise, but that’s alright – it leaves me loads of opportunities to give her the gift of handmade!)  She had this lovely pinned on her crafts board:

What a cute bracelet! I’ve seen a bunch of incarnations of button bracelets around Pinterest, heck – I’ve pinned a few myself! It looks like the buttons were sewn together with thread in the picture, but with all the silver wire I have around I thought I’d use that instead. Here’s what I came up with:

I took a good look through all of my vintage buttons and futzed around with the combinations. I wanted to keep the bracelet pretty neutral at first, but that just looked a bit too… boring. So I carefully added a few pops of color for a little interest. I’m happy with the different textures I incorporated as well.

I added the silver drop bead for a little flair, plus the weight of it will keep the top of the bracelet at the top of the wrist and prevent it from flipping around. The clasp is one I’ve been making for years. It’s called the Swan Clasp, and I learned it from Connie Fox’s website: Jatayu. There are basic tutorials, and it looks like she is offering classes as well. I don’t know her personally, but I have admired her work for years and years.