A New Vice In Life...

... I require buttons. Lots and lots of buttons. Vintage and antique buttons ofcourse. Do you have any idea how insane this makes Mr. Pretties? And no, I didn't start obtaining them simply for that purpose, I can do that well enough all by myself without the props ;)

I just happened to be junking. Again. And as I was making my way to the pillow case section, to get myself some vintage linens no doubt, I saw a huge bag full of buttons. Now, a normal person is saying 'Yuh huh... so?' and they would have kept on walking. Not me, I snatched up that bag like it was a bag of gold and there was a line of gold diggers standing behind me. The older lady standing there checking out the vintage patterns looked at me like I was nuts. Which, ofcourse, I am. Clearly. I then walked over to Mr. Pretties with a big stupid grin on my face and proudly showed him my loot. I believe he said something along the lines of 'Riiigghhhtttt.... and you're buying that? I'm not even going to ask why. Nope I'm just not going to...' and walked away. Quickly.

I sorted them lastnight and there were 1236 buttons. Some were glass, some ceramic, possibly some bakelite and celluloid. Some were so old they were no longer round, which is so sweet, it's like someone kept sewing those little sweethearts onto blouse after blouse until they were too small for the button holes after years of fingers buttoning them. That makes me feel all warm inside... I spent two hours just sorting them, examining them and totally loving on them. I totally get how people collect them.

I've now won three ebay auctions for some Victorians and some fabulous cameos, I cannot wait to get them. I'll post pictures soon, I don't need Mr. Pretties wary glance as he sees me busting out 'those stupid buttons' to take pictures of them. Especially since I don't take his picture or anything...

Have I shared my need to open an antique shop eventually? I've now decided that I would love to get some antique candy jars from the old sweet shoppes and have the buttons sorted some how (haven't decided yet...) and have them in the big old jars with little metal scoops, customers can then scoop (or pick, lets be realistic, there'll definitely be some picking going on) the buttons into old fashioned paper bags and weigh them on the antique scale (as we'll be selling them by weight ofcourse) like you see in the bulk stores. Wouldn't that be fun? Now I just need some old jars. And a scale. And, well, a shop would be helpful too...

*Sigh*

So that's were we've been at lately. Christmas was lovely, magical, loud, and I'm glad it's over. It's so nice to not have to be rushing around, cursing at Mr. Pretties about things we still have yet to pick up, cleaning the house, cleaning the house, reprimanding the LPs for sabotaging my continuous cleaning efforts, and, my lack of interneting as been unfortunate. Have I mentioned Mr. Pretties is on vacay and is absorbing a lot of my time again? He is, and he has. It's really rather selfish of him, I know, I've told him. He doesn't care. Luckily this coming week is his last one.