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One of my favourite things about making handmade fairies and dolls is rummaging about in tins of old buttons and searching out beautiful bits of vintage fabric, lace or ribbon. It goes without saying that I love the feeling of re-using something found from an environmental point of view, but I also love that the things I find have already had a life of their own – and having been lost or discarded, no longer needed for their original purpose – are just out there, floating about, or hidden in dark corners, cupboards or drawers, waiting to be re-imagined and put to use once again.

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Buttons in particular, always seem to tell a story. I can imagine the garment they might have once adorned, the sewing box they once lived in, the time period they come from and the fashions and life of those times. It’s always a dreamy kind of experience rummaging through a button tin and sort of intuitively selecting ones that I think I can use, creatively pondering on the fairies they might adorn, and sometimes they just leap out at me as a must-have for no logical reason – I’m just inspired by the colour, feel, texture or the ‘oldness’ of this delightful find!

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Most people either have to hand button tins passed down from a loved-one or childhood memories of being afforded the privilege of exploring the buttons inside the button jar of a beloved grandmother… they can be so personal, meaningful and filled with nostalgia, these tiny pieces of plastic, glass, wood of all colour shapes and sizes.

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The stories of the buttons I use are unknown to me – apart from the fragments of story that I put together from my own imagination. But it would also be so lovely to make bespoke fairies and dolls using saved and treasured buttons sent to me - with or without a story attached. One or two buttons alone can inspire the colour, character, vibe of the fairy I create and can make super-lovely keepsakes and gifts. Usually my fairies either sit of hang in a window – what a lovely way to bring all these tiny treasures hidden in dark tins out into the light!

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If you have any old buttons (or pieces of fabric, lace, ribbon) that you would like re-imagining and made into a beautiful keepsake – I would love to help! Send me your buttons! It would be a huge pleasure and privilege to create something beautiful that also honours the treasured memories contained in those little buttons.

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If you would like to commission a unique fairy or doll using your own buttons or bits'n'bobs, just pop me an initial enquiry via the form on the website, or message me on Facebook, and I’ll get back to you to see if we can dream something up 😊  

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