Vintage Button Necklace- Time to stop pinning and start DOING

Recently I made the decision to stop procrastinating… and to start actually making some of the many items that I’ve pinned in Pinterest. This idea comes from a blog called Think Crafts brought to you by Craftgawker.

While making the pendant I discovered a few tricks to make it go a little easier… You can follow the original pattern by clicking on the links above for Think Crafts or you can follow my instructions bellow.

You Will Need:

Vintage Buttons of your choice- both sew through and shank Plastic Canvas Craft Wire- I used 26 gauge Needle Nose Pliers Wire Cutters Jump Rings (2) for attaching finished pendant to necklace Necklace Chain and Clasp Felt (optional) for covering back of pendant

The first step is to lay out your design for the finished pendant… I started with a few different idea’s, using a mix of different buttons till I found one that I like the best… I will be making the others next.

The next step was to cut out the plastic canvas to roughly the size I needed. To make attaching the buttons easier and to make sure they were put in the right place to begin with I marked each of the buttons placement on the canvas, lining up the button holes to the holes on the plastic.

Then I trimmed the excess canvas being sure that there was adequate space for all of the buttons.

Next came attaching the buttons. First I cut a piece of wire about 12 inches long (you’ll need it long enough to be able to attach all the buttons but not so long that it is hard to handle). Line up the first button, making sure to line up the holes, insert the wire through from the bottom leaving a 2 inch tail, insert back through into the diagonal hole. BE SURE NOT TO LET WIRE TWIST… keep straightening out wire until you are ready to pull it through. Be sure to pull wire tight and smooth. Twist the two peices of wire together once or twice to secure and continue to weave through button holes until all flat buttons are attached. Once all of your sewing/flat buttons are attached it is time to begin adding your shank buttons.

Attach all shank buttons, being sure to weave through the shank 2-3 times to secure it tightly as shank buttons, especially vintage buttons with just a wire shank, will tend to be loose. *Shank buttons will be more secure if you first secure wire to canvas where you want the button to be, before weaving button on to canvas.

Once all buttons are secured in place, weave the wire ends under the pendant between one of shank buttons and the plastic canvas. Twist the two wires together to secure tightly and cut off ends. Use needle nose pliers to bend cut ends down so that they do not catch on anything.

Cut any excess plastic canvas away from pendant, being sure to not leave any sharp peices.

Attach jump rings to pendant and secure onto chain. I used two jump rings so that I could be sure of how the pendant would lay. You can make the length of chain to your specifications, I used to peices 8″ each.

Your pendant is now finished and is a completed necklace. You can finish it off by attaching to a piece of felt cut to the same size as the plastic canvas. This project was fun and quick to make… I’m sure with each subsequent one it will only get easier. The most important trick is to lay out your design before hand, mark each button on the canvas and to be sure not to let the wire kink or twist when attaching. Have fun with your designs and be sure take pictures… send them to me at [email protected] and I will post them to the blog!!!

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