Button Letter Art

I had recently come across a large amount of buttons. I know a lot of people who sew often collect buttons off of shirts or pants that have fallen off along the way. They often end up in a large bin of mismatched buttons. I decided to use my new found buttons to create a great monogrammed art piece that I can hang up in my bedroom

Here is what you need to create your own button masterpiece

A lot of buttons

Cardstock - one sheet for your letter backing and one sheet for the background

A letter stencil

glue (a glue stick or hot glue will work)

I started by tracing and cutting out a the letter from some black cardstock that I had on hand. While I didn't initially plan to use a backing for my letter, I decided to use it since the buttons I had were a similar color and I wanted a clean outline for my letter.

The black letter would be the paper the buttons would actually glue onto instead of gluing the buttons directly to the background cardstock paper

Now take your pile of saved buttons and start laying them out and gluing them onto the letter shape.

Since you have the letter shape you don't need to worry about covering all the space with the buttons. Luckily the majority of the buttons I was using were black and matched the backing really well so the spaces weren't really noticeable.

You also have the option to lay out the buttons before gluing them. It will help you get the sense of what the final product will end up being.

When you are happy with how your buttons are placed and you have glued them down, it is time to glue the letter to your backing.

You will have to do some flipping with your piece so make sure all the buttons are dry before moving. The last thing you would want is for your buttons to fall off right after you spent all that time gluing them on.

When the glue has dried you will have your completed piece. All that is left to do is frame it. You may need to crop the backing accordingly to fit into the the frame. And you have a nice framed piece of artwork

Depending on the frame, you may want to not put the glass into the frame with the texture of the buttons. I chose to use the glass for my frame and it came out well. You could still see the texture but the glass gave extra precaution so the buttons wouldn't get knocked off the piece. It still had a great look to it even behind the glass. I was really happy with how it came out