Dinosaur Buttons



I'm always looking for ideas for boys.  There seems to be a lot more ideas for cute items for girls.  So when I find boy button ideas I get really excited.  I think these dinosaur buttons will fit the bill.  These can be found here https://www.etsy.com/listing/126139349/dinosaur-buttons-set-of-8-different  I like these because the colours are more muted.  I have other dinosaur buttons on my site but those are a bit more pastel in colour and while they'd also work for boys these are more traditional colours in muted greens and browns for the most part.  I decided I just had to have these images when I saw the mastodon image.  I thought he was just so adorable.  I may make a set of just him at some point.  These particular buttons are 3/4" or 2 cm round.  The images are used with permission of Cintio and Americo.  I love their images.

 

Speaking of boys in my last post I said I was going to share a bit more of myself rather than just list pictures of my buttons.  I'm not sure I have that much of interest to say but oh well.  I spend Saturday going out with my son.  He's grown and doesn't live at home but I talk to him almost every day and see him fairly often.  We had a great day just going for a late breakfast/brunch and then visiting some of the great stores in this wonderful city we live in.  We really didn't have anything specific in time but I always love being able to spend time with him and I appreciate that as an adult he loves spending time with me as well.  I did have a lot of buttons to do.  I don't think I've really got caught up from being on vacation a few weeks ago.  However, it was well worth it to put all that aside and just spend time with him.  The buttons will wait and I don't have any hard and fast deadlines I need to meet.  I do have some custom order requests but I'll get them done.  When I get a chance to spend time with my son I will always take that opportunity. 

 

I was at the day job today and now tonight I'm trying to list a few items that I took pictures of and hopefully take a few more pictures.  I also opened an EBay store on the weekend so I'm tyring to get that up and running.  Once I have a few more listed there I'll post a link on my blog.  I am posting some auctions as well so perhaps you can snag a button deal!  Well I'm off to finish off some more things before I get too tired which knowing me should be about 7:00 p.m. :) 



Cinderella Buttons

It's been a while since I've added a post here.  I was having some trouble uploading pictures but that seems to have corrected itself now.  These Cinderella buttons are available at www.buttonsbyrobin.com They're perfect for your little princess.  On a more personal note I've decided that I need to use my blog to show a little bit more of my personal side and not just list pictures of my buttons.  I'm not sure I have that much to say that will be of interest but I do know with handmade items it's nice to get to know the maker just a bit so I'm going to try to do my best to add some of that in my blog.

Ebay Listings

I've added a few of my buttons to Ebay.  I thought I'd give it a try.  Perhaps you can get a deal!
http://www.ebay.ca/sch/buttonsbyrobin/m.html?item=140905334251&sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649&_trksid=p4340.l2562

Newest Ceramic Handmade Bird Buttons

 

Here is a peak inside the kiln today.  These are my latest bird buttons.  There are some turquoise, red and darker blue.  I can't wait for them to be cool enough to take out and get a good look at.  These are really simply glazed in a single colour but I think they turned out really well.  I've also filled in the spaces with a few small heart buttons.  I also had room for one of my speckled green and red Christmas coloured buttons.  I've got more of these speckled buttons glazed but haven't fired them yet.  Too bad I didn't get around to doing these in time for Christmas.  I think they are really pretty.  I guess I'll have a start on them for next Christmas.  I'm going to be putting all my shops on vacation mode tomorrow night until about the 21st of December.  I'm going to take a break from making buttons.  It's actually making me a bit anxious to put the shop into vacation mode.  I've never done it before in all the years I've had my shops.  If I've gone away or taken a break I've just put a notice up and indicated I'd ship out at a certain date.  Since it's so close to Christmas right now I've decided I'd rather risk losing a potential sale than have someone buy something and not realize I'm not going to the post office for a bit.  I'd really hate to disappoint anyone.  Well we'll see how it goes :)

Amost Time for a Break

 

I'm going to be closing up my button shops in the next couple of days - probably Monday night.  I'll list a few more buttons over the weekend but then will be closing up shop from December 10th until the 20th.  I don't want any disappointed last minute Christmas shoppers.  So while I've slowed down listing the resin buttons I've turned my mind to my handmade ceramic buttons.  The picture here is of some ceramic bird buttons I hope to get up just after Christmas.  These have the glaze colour on them but need to have the clear glaze put on and then they have to be fired in the kiln.  Ceramic buttons take such a long time to make.  They have to be shaped from the clay and then there is all that drying time that needs to happen.  These particular bird buttons have a very delicate tail on them which breaks very easily until they are fired.  I'm experimenting as I go.  I did fire a small kiln this morning and am waiting for it to cool so I can list some of these buttons.  I'm teaching myself ceramics so sometimes my experiments work and sometimes they don't.  No matter what I'm always learning so it's always fun.  Ceramics are certainly not an exact science so I know that I always need to make extra buttons because not all of them will turn out.  These birds will be orange, blue and turquoise.  I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Bright and Cheerful

Now that I've moved on from making Christmas and holiday buttons I'm excited to be working with bright and cheerful buttons.  It's refreshing to be working with the colours again.  I love these owls https://www.etsy.com/listing/115450639/6-small-owl-buttons-handmade-buttons-sew  These are smaller and just the perfect touch.  I'm also very excited to be using a new printing process which makes the buttons even more durable.  It's a bit of a learning process again as it is taking some time to work with the new process and get the colours as I want them.  I'm not looking at this as a setback though.  I'm looking at it as a wonderful opportunity to make my product even better.  I'm also being more selective in what I choose to make.  I'm fortunate that I don't rely on my buttons to pay the bills so I can be more selective.  I do like making custom orders for people because it's always such a thrill to be able to give them exactly what they want.  It brings a smile to my face when they're happy that I have been able to create the perfect embellishment for them.  At the same time I find custom orders stressful because I do want to make the exact button that the customer has in their mind.  For this reason I'm turning down orders that I need to make in a short amount of time if I feel that this will add stress to the process for me.  I don't want to disappoint so I'd rather turn down work than stress about being able to meet an unrealistic timeline.  I hope that doesn't disappoint but I really think part of the joy in the handmade process is to be able to control, to some extent, the work that I take on.  I also want to be able to spend some time making some of my artisan ceramic and glass buttons so I have to step back a bit on the resin buttons to have time to do this.  I do know it's getting close to the cut off for people to purchase buttons for Christmas.  I also plan to put my shop on vacation mode on about December 10th or so.  Most years I leave the shop open and people purchase but I am always concerned that orders won't arrive in time and people will be disappointed.  I'm in Canada so even if purchase by December 10th there is a good possibility the buttons won't arrive in time.  This will cut down on this.  This also allows me time to have a bit of a break and take a vacation without worrying about responding to conversations/emails.  We'll see how that goes.  It does make me a bit anxious about putting the shop in vacation mode but I think I'm going to try it this year.  We'll see if I actually do it when it comes time.  There is a balance I'm trying to achieve between my art and the joy of creating and providing custom orders to my clients while not putting too much additional stress on myself.  I guess that's always the challenge when a product comes directly from the artist.  We'll see how that works out as I try this approach during the upcoming new year.

Christmas Buttons

As I write this it is just mid November but for those of us that make supplies it's now time to start moving on from Christmas items.  I always enjoyed Christmas as a child and I do enjoy making these seasonal buttons.  I especially love the Kawaii Christmas themed buttons https://www.etsy.com/listing/114668972/5-kawaii-christmas-buttons-handmade These are just so cute.  Even though it's just November it's time to start thinking of Valentine's Day and spring themed items.  There really isn't enough time to make more Christmas buttons and get them listed in my shop and in the mail to their new homes.  I have several Christmas themed/snowman themed items already made and I'll try to get these listed this week or on the weekend.  It's hard to tear myself away from these really cute designs though. 

Now it's also time to start thinking about whether I want to go on vacation in December.  We have a vacation booked for February to the Bahamas and I'm really looking forward to that.  We sometimes go away in December as well.  I'm always torn about whether to go or not.  I know - what a terrible dilemma to have to decide on one vacation or two.  Now that the weather here in Canada is getting colder though a warm sunny destination in December sure looks appealing. Since I have the day off from my day job in honour of Remembrance Day (which fell yesterday on Sunday but since it was on a weekend we get the Monday off instead) maybe I'll take a look at the travel sites and see if I can come up with something to entice the hubby to get away.