Button Stampers

I have some collections. A couple few… One of my favorite collections is my stack of vintage craft books – or should I say Kraft with a K books – as these are the KITCHY kind from the 50’s and 60’s that are chock full of unique projects using everyday materials to create the strange and unusual. This is the stuff I grew up on – which explains a lot. 

I will do a separate blog post about this treasure trove of delightful tomes some other time, but the point of this blog post is to say that this button stamper is not my original idea, but in fact came from one of these books.

I made my button stampers many years ago for a workshop I gave at a teacher’s conference. I have used them on numerous occasions since with children and adults and they are good as new.

Here ya go –

Materials –

 *old buttons with cool designs and some raised areas

*old corks – either the real deal or the new fangled kind

* strong glue - a strong white glue like Elmer’s or Aleene’s

*ink stamp pads

*slight padding for work surface like folded newspaper

*fine point washable magic markers or colored pencils

*paper or card stock

Procedure –

*glue one button with design side up, to the end of each cork

* let em dry overnight

*put the folded newspaper on your work surface for padding

* stamp button stamper on ink pad

*stamp button stamper on paper

*sometimes you need to rock ‘em slightly to get a good print

*add details with markers

*they make great:

  wheels for vehicles

  flower centers

  sun

  animal heads

  and more

*after your work session is done wipe them clean with soft rag

* you can wash them with warm water and towel dry them, but wiping them off is usually sufficient, and makes them last longer