Thursday, October 16, 2014

Crafty Thursdays: A Crafty Christmas & Giveaway



Mollie Cox Bryan is here for Crafty Thursdays with a great book mark idea. Don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway at the end of the post. 

Do you have tin cans and baskets full of vintage buttons? I’ve a great way for you to repurpose or upcycle those buttons and get them out of storage. You can make bookmarks with your beautiful buttons with just a glue gun and a paper clip.

If you have a glue gun, plug it in, and let’s get started. 
You can use either small, plain paperclips or big, colored paper clips. I like the bigger ones because I find they actually work nicer as bookmarks.
Hot glue seems to work well on the plastic, glass, or metal buttons. Sometimes it takes some practice to figure out how much glue to use. 
I play with the colored paper clips and the buttons to see which button looks best which color paperclip. 
You can get creative with the buttons. As you can probably tell, I’ve glued some smaller buttons onto large ones. 

If you don’t like the naked backs, you can always cover them with felt. It hides the glue mess nicely. 



Finding Buttons

1. Flea markets, yard sales, and second hand shops are great places to find vintage buttons. 
2. Ask your older relatives if they might have a stash. 
3. Both Ebay and Etsy sell vintage buttons. 





In crafting, like so much about life, there’s just no ONE right way to do things—so have fun experimenting. One commenter will win three of my button bookmarks. 

Happy crafting—and reading! 


Mollie Cox Bryan writes the Cumberland Creek Mysteries, published by Kensington. The first book, Scrapbook of Secrets, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel of 2012 and was selected by B & N as a mystery to watch. The rest of the books in the series are: SCRAPPED, DEATH OF AN IRISH DIVA, SCRAPPY SUMMER (e-novella), CRAFTY CHRISTMAS and SCRAPBOOK OF THE DEAD (forthcoming 2015). She is also the author of the bestselling MRS. ROWE'S LITTLE BOOK OF SOUTHERN PIES (Random House 2009) and MRS. ROWE'S RESTAURANT COOKBOOK: A LIFETIME OF RECIPES FROM THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY (Ten Speed Press, 2006). She has worked for years as a freelance food journalist with articles published in Taste of the South, NPR’s Kitchen Window, and Grit Magazine, among others. She lives in Waynesboro, Va. with her husband and two daughters.






About Crafty Christmas

Christmas is just around the corner, and the ladies of the Cumberland Creek Scrapbook Crop are thrilled when Sheila wins the first place prize in a scrapbooking design contest: a ten-day scrapbook-themed cruise in the Caribbean. Vera and Paige decide to tag along, which should pose the perfect opportunity to learn some new techniques, mingle with fellow croppers, and get in some rest and relaxation before the chaos of Christmas. But when Sheila finds a famous crafter dead, and investigators determine she was poisoned, the luxury cruise veers toward disaster as Sheila becomes the number one suspect--or was she really the intended victim? Just as the croppers begin un-wrapping the truth, a storm strands them at sea, and they'll find it's harder than ever to survive the holidays with a killer on deck. . .




Rafflecopter Code: a Rafflecopter giveaway

7 comments:

  1. What a neat idea! Why can't I ever think of things, like this?


    patucker54 at aol dot com

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  2. Sounds easy enough. Wonder how I can mess it up...

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  3. Wow what a great idea for a bookmark. The next time I go home for the holidays, I'll have to see if my mom and grandma have any old buttons they would let me have.

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  4. I love these bookmarks, and they seem easy enough that I can make them for my bookclub members as Xmas gifts. The book looks good and I love the cruise ship setting. The cover is great too, book covers draw me in.

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  5. Thanks everybody for commenting! So glad you like my bookmarks.
    Good luck with the contest!

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  6. Oh what a cute idea! I love this - I may be adopting this for some gifts this year for Christmas. Thank you so much for sharing, Mollie!

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