Buttons From Avocado Pits

I’ve been inspired by avocado pit carvings for a while. However, because of how much the pit can warp while drying, I didn’t really get into it. So I had the idea of making little buttons. This project is quite simple, and the result is beautiful and can be used in other projects. I had a lot of fun doing it.

The main supplies are:

·       Avocado pit (obviously )

·       Pocket knife (or your favourite small carving knife)

·       Small cookie cutters (can be bought on amazon, they’re mostly used for polymer clay, since they’re too small for actual cookies)

·       Hand drill

·       Wax for woodworking

Leave the avocado pit in a dry place for a day or to until the skin becomes dry and crackly. Peal the skin off and split the pit into two halves.

The peeled pit surface is shiny, but the inside is matte. Using a knife cut off thin layers from the surface of the pit until no shiny areas are left. This helps prevent wrinkling and warping when drying. Cut the bottom so it's flat.

Push a round cookie cutter into the flesh of the pit. Remove the cutting from the cookie cutter and slice it into 5 mm thick sections. Repeat this until you run out of avocado pit. Using the knife round off the edges by cutting off small sections at a time until you get a smooth shape.

Dry the buttons under a weight. Sand the surface so it’s smooth. Mark out the buttonholes with a pencil.

Drill the buttonholes using a hand drill. To hold them in place while I drilled, I used double sided tape to hold it on a wooden block.

To make the colours more vibrant and make the buttons more water resistant I used a mixture of beeswax and coconut oil. I rubbed it in using a piece of cloth. However, any wax meant for wood finishing that you have on hand will work well. That’s just what I had.

I tried the same process with a square cookie cutter. I found it difficult to remove thick chunks of avocado pit from the cutter so my recommendation when using cutter shapes with corners is to first slice the pit halve into 5 mm thick sections and only then use the cookie cutter on them. With squares I also drilled 4 holes instead of 2.

I used the same process for triangle buttons. It worked well. The shape isn’t very practical, but they make really cute decorative buttons.