The button jar

When I was little, my Mum had a jar of buttons in her sewing box, I loved it.  I'd spend hours looking through the buttons, taking them in and out of the jar, sorting through them.  Even now thirty or so years later, I can still remember some of the buttons that were in the jar, there were little ones cut from an old cardigan of mine, blue with little white flowers on them. There was a little green button with an indentation in it that fitted my index finger perfectly.  There were some large important looking silver buttons with shanks, from my Grandpa's old bus driver uniform.

My button jar

Until recently, I didn't have a button jar.  I had lots of buttons, some of them in little plastic bags, that came as spares for new clothes, some that I had left over from something I'd made, some that I'd saved in case I ever needed them, and others that just appeared from somewhere, but no button jar.  I decided that it was about time that I set up my own button jar, to keep my buttons together in.

A good distraction

I had some sewing that I needed to get done this weekend, which isn't always easy with some over eager 'helpers' around.  As I was getting my sewing things out, I thought that it might be time to introduce my small people to the button jar.  I opened the jar, and gave it to Anja, along with a tray to put the buttons on.  She spent a good half an hour emptying the buttons out, looking at them, putting them back into the jar and generally enjoying herself.

Fun for all ages

After a while she got a bit bored, and started to try and throw the buttons onto the floor, and even eat them.  I stepped in at that point and found her something else to do.  Lena came in for a look at the buttons though, and was just as interested as her sister had been. She went and fetched a spoon to help her put them back into the jar as she was playing.

So there you have it, hours of entertainment with nothing more sophisticated than a jar of old buttons.  Do you have a button jar or tin? Did you play with your mothers button jar when you were small?