Button, Button, Who's got the button?

So I have been feeling crafty lately.  I think it's because of Pinterest.  My friend Elizabeth got me hooked.  (If you're a member of Pinterest, you know what I'm talking about.  If you don't- don't try to find out.  It's a black hole of wonderfulness that is more addicting than crack...You laugh, but it's true (not that I would know how addictive crack is... can you even put parenthesis inside another set?) oh well...)  Anyways, so looking at all of the wonderful crafty ideas and things that I could do around my house has started the creative/crafty juices going in my brain.  It's actually kinda crazy, it kept me awake last night until 2am because I couldn't get my brain to shut off.  They were all pretty good ideas, and I wouldn't have been irritated, except for the fact that even though today is Saturday I couldn't sleep in, because today we participated in a memorial 5k run/walk for Marshall's friend that died in Iraq.  So we had to get up at 6:30.  Yeah.  I wasn't a happy camper when the alarm went off.

But, all of those creative juices have served a purpose.  I was crafty for the first time in a while.  So, I've wanted a chunky necklace for a while, but I've never found one that I really liked.  They were all either too one color or over-the-top chunky and looked like they'd make me top-heavy.  This is compounded by Alaina's propensity for chewing/pulling on whatever jewelry I happen to be wearing.  I had a conundrum.

Enter the button jar.

Every one that has ever sewn at all has some kind of random button holder- a jar, tin, whatever... mine is a mason jar that Alaina has started to play with as a rattle... Well, the other day the newly awoken creative part of my brain looked at this button assortment and said "I could make a necklace out of that".  And instead of the other part of my brain laughing at this random idea and storing it in the vault of undone ideas, I actually did it.

What do you think?  Not bad for buttons and embroidery floss, if I do say so myself. I also used the beads from a charm bracelet that I never wear to pull it all together (that's the silver).

pardon the lack of makeup :D

I really like it.  And, it was totally easy, I had all the materials, so it didn't cost me a dime (I love free things), and it's totally practical.  I mean, it's all buttons.  Most of them are big enough that Alaina couldn't swallow them, and I double flossed it- extra protection against her pulling on it and breaking it.   I knotted the embroidery floss after every couple of buttons, so even if she does happen to pull hard enough to break it, it wouldn't break all the way, and the buttons wouldn't be able to go all over the place.  She can chew on it to her heart's content. And it looks good! :D

I think she likes it! :D