Weddingbee Blog

I love buttons. I love that there are a billion and one things you can do with them, I love the fact that they can be one inch in diameter, and I love that people collect them. Something as simple as a little piece of paper can be turned into a tiny piece of art.

When I first started thinking about wedding projects, my instinct was to go to my button maker. I bought my button maker years ago, when I wanted to advertise for the Etsy shop I was running at the time. It’s not cheap, but the machine’s paid for itself time and again.

Another option, if you want to make these one-inch pinback buttons, is to turn to Etsy. There are probably sellers there that will do mixed batches for you too.

Anyway, I thought the wedding project that made the most sense with buttons would be escort cards. Our wedding leans toward the casual side, so we’re not doing seating arrangements. We are, however, having numbered tables, so I thought that was perfect!

Once I decided on a color scheme, I started looking for vintage wrapping paper. I found this sweet floral paper in our colors, and the first thing I did was cut it into strips so I could punch out the circles.

Once I had the circles punched out, I prepped the paper ribbons. I cut these out of a card-stock swatch book someone gave me, so the cost was $0. Whee! I wrote all the table numbers on the paper ribbons and layered them on the floral wrapping paper.

It was button-making time! I don’t have photos to show you of how I made them this time, but here’s a short video I made when Bridesmaid G made buttons for her blog readers.

Source

Once the buttons were made, I wanted to add some ribbon to them for a little flair. I took a piece of ribbon about four inches long and folded it accordion style. (I made the top pleat longer than the other.) Then I pushed the pinback through the bottom part of the accordion—no adhesive necessary!

I used a set of Martha Stewart punches to create this little piece of square card stock—I love the scalloped outlines that the punch makes! I got mine from Create For Less. It takes a little time, but if you start your projects early, you can just punch out a couple of sheets a night and, before you know it, it’ll all be done.

You can thread the pin part through the scalloped outlines to attach the pin to the card without punching any extra holes.

When I started doing this I wanted to put the pin in the center of the card like it’s framed. But I’m starting to like putting it on the top because that leaves plenty of space for the person’s name. What do you think?