You should see the fabulous array of buttons!
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346 Main Street in Etna
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346 Main Street in Etna
Tag: buttons
346 Main Street in Etna
Sifting Through a Junk Dish
You might have an actual junk drawer. I do. This glass dish accumulation is on a smaller scale. The items need to be evaluated and most of them discarded.
An old eraser, the end of the curtain rod, Canadian coin, a single earring, perfume sample, a button from a blouse long gone, a knotty necklace chain, a pink polished rock, a rubber stamp square, a game token, a tiny key and an ivory brooch. I need the curtain rod piece. The rock can go in the dish of polished rocks I have on my desk in the hall. Maybe I have the other clip-on earring.
Button Up in Green
Somehow I can’t stop myself from photographing all things green this week. Today at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival, I stopped at the vintage buttons booth.
Thanks Michelle from Dusty’s Vintage Buttons from South Carolina. I’d offer a link but she doesn’t have one. You have to catch her next year at the festival. She started collecting when she got buttons from a friend’s grandmother and hasn’t stopped.
button up
1. Lit. to fasten one’s buttons. Your jacket’s open. You’d better button up. It’s cold. I’ll button up in the car.2. Fig. to get silent and stay silent. (See also button (up) one’s lip.) Hey, button up! That’s enough out of you. I wish you would button up and stop gossiping.McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
It is easy being green Weekly Photo Challenge
Lightner Museum Houses Countless Collections
The title a bit misguided because of course each and every collection is carefully cataloged and counted.
It was just that there were so many collections.
After going through the museum you felt as if you wanted to get home and start purging stuff. Look around and eliminate the collections in your house.
Lightner Museum in St. Augustine Florida had that effect on my friend Joanne and me.
My favorite collection was the Leonard H. Baer Toaster Collection.
Their website lists the collections.
From typewriters to Tiffany,
Otto Lightner’s collection of fine
and decorative art from the 19th century
is impressive and extensive.The Museum’s eclectic collection
ranges from a mummy, shrunken heads,
human hair art, cigar labels, buttons,
salt and pepper shakers, to Tiffany glass,
cut glass, porcelain, fine art paintings,
furniture and sculpture all housed
throughout the four floors of
the original Alcazar Hotel.
Dressing Downton Changing Fashion for Changing Times October 4, 2017 – January 7, 2018
Yes, that’s the cafe in the old swimming pool.
Chaos: Up Close and Personal
Chaos: Weekly Photo Challenge do you have a junk drawer? Or two? A little dish that collects odds and ends? Stray stuff without a place to reside?
Wordless Wednesday
Buying Buttons in New York City and Learning of Rumi
This is the story of my seeking special buttons for grandbaby knitting projects, (completed and on the needles) while visiting NYC over Spring break.
My sister guided me to the button store I’d found online.
Oh no, bad news.
We got to the address and there was paper covering the windows and the security grill was down-
CLOSED-
I can’t tell you how disappointed I felt.
Fortunately, a man on the sidewalk saw us staring at the storefront in disbelief and he pointed to the place next door.
Lou Lou Buttons had moved just one number over, due to a malfunction of errant sprinklers and being flooded out. 
Phew!
Turned out it was the store owner, Ross, who invited us into the button store. And I found so many interesting buttons. They are from all over the world, Japan, France…you name it!
He said every Broadway show and opera production has come to his store to buy buttons for costumes.
I believe it! Some people replace every button on garments they purchase, to improve and upgrade the look.
teddy bears and sailboats
Dog buttons and elephants
Here are the buttons I bought
and here is the owner Ross, photographed by my sister Mary. I was in the photo but the image looks better with myself cropped out! 
I took this one with more buttons in the background to give you the idea of the inventory.
When I asked about the origin of the store name Lou Lou Buttons, turns out Lou Lou is like the Boogeyman, so when a child is called in from playing outside the mother might say, “Come in now, or Lou Lou’s going to get you.”
We heard Ross tell The story of the merchant to whom the parrot gave a message for the parrots of India on the occasion of his going (thither) to trade. by the Persian poet Rumi. It’s here if you don’t know it. Be sure to scroll down for the translation in English.
It was a day when the universe rhymed- the button store still there (just one door to the lef) cute buttons for the baby sweaters and my sister and I were enthralled as we listened to the wonderful story by Rumi.
It’s said he’s “the best selling poet in the United States.”
Buying buttons and hearing Ross tell Rumi’s story of the parrot was a New York City experience.
We left his store with a lot more than just buttons.
Button, Button, Whose Got the Button? ( & Bridal Veils, too!)
1700 Carson Street is the home of a great button store. It fascinates me- Parker Button. Boxes and boxes stacked from floor to ceiling. All colors, shapes and sizes. Like an artist’s palette. Shank or flat. Frogs and belt buckles. Ribbon and trim. Spools of thread to sew them all on for utility or ornamentation. My mother had a glass jar full of buttons. My sister made me the coolest necklace from vintage mother-of-pearl shirt buttons, strung onto embroidery floss. Do you have any clothing missing a button?
The other half of the shop is Clarissa’s Boutique . One word to describe the bridal veils, jewelry and accessories for custom headpieces and wedding necessities- exquisite? lovely? classic? ethereal? They will create a custom headpiece for you but allow three months. Feathers, flowers, jewels, or pearls. Voted the Best of the Knot for weddings 2011.
These Days Buttons are Often a Part of Web Design
Or people push our buttons.
Press the button to call the elevator
or select your floor.
Today’s post is the old fashioned kind.
Two-hole, four-hole or shank.
Metal, plastic, shell or bone.
Beatrix Potter shapes of rabbits.
When was the last time you sewed on a button?
Today marks 500 blog posts and counting!
Growing up we had a record with the song ( these lyrics are from 1929)
Button up your overcoat, When the wind is free, Oh, take good care of yourself, You belong to me! Eat an apple every day, Get to bed by three, Oh, take good care of yourself, You belong to me! Be careful crossing streets, ooh-ooh, Cut out sweets, ooh-ooh, Lay off meat, ooh-ooh, You'll get a pain and ruin your tum-tum!