A pane in the glass... and lots of buttons

At least I wasn't driving. I would have peed my pants.

Our Monday started off rather eventfully. During our commute, the tire from a tractor trailer blew up and went all over the road, causing the pick-up truck in front of us to hit it and then propel it back into our windshield. So this was my view from Peabody to Boston. We're totally ok, and the windshield replacement people were very prompt and awesome about getting things done.  So Shortcake (what I named our car) is back to normal. I am also back to normal, after being jittery until about 11:30 a.m.

More.

Otherwise, our weekend was quite good, and filled to the brim with this and that. Father's Day celebrations, yard sales, friends, yard work, garage cleaning, grilling... and buttons. Lots and lots of buttons. A friend of our family gave me her button collection as she is trying to clean out her house.  (Despite owning about 1,356,902 buttons already, I was thrilled at the prospect of being the proud owner of more.)

So I came home one evening and there they were on the doorstep. I started soaking them in some water and dish soap to scrub them up a bit, then drained and dried them. There is genuinely a little bit of everything here! I am crazy about all the colors, sizes and shapes. They're like little crafty candies.

The pink ones taste like peppermint! No, not really.

Bert, King of the Buttons

My Dad is also a big fan of buttons -- my grandmother in Virginia had a giant jar of buttons that he and his sisters would play with when they were little. So on Saturday night, he and Mum came over for a BBQ and he helped me sort through the button extravaganza. It's kind of like sitting around and doing a jigsaw puzzle.  Just looking at little shapes and colors, matching them up to where they should go. And it was nice to relax on a summer evening, talking and doing nothing really important other than looking at colors, shapes, sizes and the like.

This photo of my Dad (whose real name is Hobie, but who I call Bert or Bertrude on any given day) was taken in our dining room, and some day, I will post more pics of that and the rest of the house. I made the wreath up on the wall. Oh, and we need to get curtains in there still.  One thing at a time. Curtains are right up there with dress and shoe shopping as far as I'm concerned. Way too stressful.



I'm seriously in love with that red layered button there.

On Sunday (Father's Day), we went to the Todd Farm in Rowley to walk around and see what the flea market vendors had that we couldn't live without.  Wouldn't you know it? More buttons! I indulged. (You're shocked, I know.) And Dad bought some for me too, so we'll sort through all of those on another night.

I know the next logical question is what I will possibly do with them all -- the answer to that is many, many, many things. Lots of projects.  They make their way in to everything very easily! Jewelry, altered art, cards, wreaths, you name it.  I'm a button addict and it runs in the family.