BUTTONS

Hello, and thanks for stopping by my blog.

I'm excited to be joining in a blog hop in celebration of the 200th challenge at Lasting Memories.

If you've arrived here from Karen Wilson's blog ~ welcome!  If this is your first stop, please be sure to hop back to Lasting Memories to start the hop so you don't miss a thing.

Our challenge this week is BUTTONS. We are looking for buttons, buttons everywhere on your layouts.   The DT has gotten creative with buttons on our layouts and we hope you'll be inspired.

Along the hop,  each of us has a letter for you to collect.  You will need to unscramble the letters to spell out a short scrapbook-themed phrase (hint ~ it's two words) so don't forget to jot down my letter which you'll see below.  When you've completed the hop, leave your answer in the comment section back at Lasting Memories.  Comments will be moderated so there's no peeking!   Link up your LO... and... our grand prize winner will receive a $25 gift certificate from A2Z Scrapbooking Store!

To celebrate our 200th challenge, you'll see that some of us are also offering a little blog candy on our personal blogs but you have to visit us to see who!   I'd love to give away some lollipop flowers with button centres, handmade by me:



Everyone is welcome to join my giveaway {You don't have to join the blog hop, although that would be great too...}  All you need to do is leave a comment on this post, telling me how you like to use buttons.  I'll leave it open until the end of the month, and draw a winner on 1st August.

Now, time for my reveal... I was inspired by layout sketch #95 from Feeling Sketchy to create my layout design:



I love patterned buttons of all kinds - striped, floral, and ~ my absolute favourite ~ spotted.  I used some pre-made buttons on this layout (stripes and spots) and I also decorated my own.  You can see a close-up on my sneak peek at the top of this post.

My button technique ~
Altering buttons is so easy to do: Use paint, gel pen, permanent marker, liquid pearls, correction fluid, or even nail polish!  I just grabbed a white Signo gel pen and drew some little dots around the edge.  There's no special technique involved, although I recommend going slowly so the pattern doesn't smudge before it has a chance to dry.

Materials:
Ribbon Girl Red, white & blue mixed pack buttons
Green Tara 6cm petals - Fire Engine Red paper flower
Jenni's Jewels handmade flower
Fancy Pants mulberry flower
UPK Gallery Winter is Coming - Letter from Home patterned paper
Bazzill Basics cardstock
Paper doiley
Vintage book page
Prima Rondelle alphabet stickers


Your next stop on the hop is Denise's blog.   Have fun and happy hopping! Don't forget my letter:

Here's the full HOP LINE UP:

Lasting Memories
Claire
Jane
Kimberly
Karen W
Karen B
Denise
Michele
Elizabeth
Darcy
Jackie
Toni
Lasting Memories

10-08-2014 Edit to add:  My layout was selected as one of the Top Picks at Feeling Sketchy: