New Friends

I have found a wonderful new group of button friends in a community called Button Bytes.  In addition to a membership that includes some of the most respected and knowledgeable people in the Button World, but you can ask questions or just learn from the queries of others!  A fun thing they do is called “Wild Wednesday” where members can sell their buttons.  Oh My Goodness!  Lock up your checkbooks, ‘cause the temptation is incredible!  I hope to have a link for Button Bytes on my web site.

I also met a wonderful lady who makes lovely “No Harm” button jewelry and has a beautiful store on Etsy.  Check out her creations.

Tomorrow I travel to Denver for a Button Workshop, sponsored by the Colorado State Button Society.  We will review the rule for competition, catch up with good friends, and buy and sell our buttons!  Too much fun!  In addition, my March Newsletter will be published.  I hope you enjoy it!  I’ll be featuring artist Cindy Webb and her buttons.  Don’t miss out!

    

For Love of a Button

These are my favorite buttons in my entire collection!  They are plastic, a dull yellow color, about 2 inches across and have impressed lines.  They will never win an award or be included on a competition tray.  You would probably discard them in a heartbeat, even to craft with, yet I would not sell them to you for a million dollars!  Why do they mean so much to me?  They once were sewn to a quilted yellow robe that my Nanny wore until it was so threadbare it was cut up for dust rags.  She wore it when she bathed us on Saturday nights (when we slept over) before we went to church.  She wore it in the morning when she served us a breakfast of our favorite coffee cake.  She wore it while she rocked us in a red rocking chair and read us a bedtime story or sang us a song that we now sing to our own children!

My Da (grandpa) lived to the age of 99 and a half, passing away in January of 2007.  Nanny followed him in August.  After 70 years of marriage, we were not surprised. 

In case you were wondering, I also have a set of plain white buttons from Da’s pajamas!

Collect what you love!

The Gorski Zoo

  Meet the rest of the Gorski family!  Many of you have talked to me on the phone have “met” my dog, Annie!  When the phone rings she goes crazy, grabs her ball and heads for the backyard so that I will throw the ball off the deck to her.  After all, I’m not busy…just talking on the phone!  This picture shows her on my “handwork” chair in my craft room.  Annie’s favorite trick is to take a single button from a box (tells you what my craft room looks like!) and brings it to me, hoping to swap the button for a treat.

    

This is Meow-Meow.  She adopted us shortly after we got Annie.  She is very vocal, as her name implies.  We were sure she had another family so her name was only temporary.  Guess what…it stuck.  She is a lover and prowls the neighborhood with her boyfriend next door whose name is Moose, a very large (neutered) tabby who terrorizes Annie from time to time.  Moose and Meow-Meow are so cute together!

I tell you all this so that when you order from my web site, jillionsofbuttons.com you will know whose fur is all over your buttons when you receive them!  Kidding (sort of!)!!!   In addition I carry a great line of cat and dog buttons for your projects!                                     

Spring Cleaning

Here in Colorado Winter can be a real roll of the dice!  This last weekend the weather was so nice that I got the cleaning bug and spent some serious time putting my basement / office in order.  I feel so much better now!

This week will be spent adding new buttons to my web site, JillionsOfButtons.com and writing my Newsletter for the month of March.  I have lots of great things in store and I can’t wait to share them.

March is not only National Craft Month and National Quilt Month, but the 3rd week in March is National Button Week!  I plan to celebrate all of these events with lots of pictures and ideas here on my blog all month long!  I hope you enjoy them!  Feel free to share your own pictures and projects with me so that I can pass them along.  In addition I hope you will check out the National Button Society web site and think about joining!  The benefits are incredible and yearly dues is only $25.00!

I’ll leave you with a couple pictures from The Phoenix Quilt Craft and Sewing Festival.  What a great way to use your buttons!

 

I love being on the road, but being home is wonderful! With all my inventory in the house, dirty laundry, and no food in the house, this Valentines day was busy but satisfying. I'm not done yet, but it feels better to have some of the house clean!

Sunday was Button Club meeting. We covered a lot of ground in a short time, discussing the Colorado State Show that is coming up in May, the National Show that will be here in Denver in August, and the awards list (subjects for competition) for our State's 2010 show, already! I sold and autographed several of my new books for my friends and we bought and sold buttons from each other. I aquired some great buttons, my favorite of which are 5 new Battersea Pewter buttons, one of which has the coveted "head" shank. I'll try to photograph it and post it for you to see.

Meantime, I'll post pictures of my Sister-in-law, Jeannine, along with my neice, Grace and nephews Ryan and Seth. We made button covered picture frames while Aunt Jill visited a few weeks ago. They will be Junior NBS members if I can keep this up!!!

Button Up!

Jill

A First for Me

My first ever blog posting! I guess it's time to move into the 21st Century and get with the program. I especially want to be able to connect with all of the other button lovers out there, as well as quilters, sewers, and creative people of all kinds. I think that this, combined with my web site, Jillions of Buttons, and my monthly newsletter will help me to do just that. Like many of you, I want to share ideas and information about our God-given gifts. I hope you'll join me!

Meet my family:

Chad, wife Anna and son Tristan

Bryan and wife Lisa

Emily

My husband, Steve (or Bear, as I call him) and me!

Chad and Emily are in the Navy and Bryan is in the AirForce