How to Reuse Old Buttons

Each time you buy a shirt or coat with buttons you risk accumulating extra buttons in your home. Not only do they occasionally fall off, but also you usually will receive extra buttons with your clothing purchase. After awhile, all of these buttons get out of hand and you need to find something to do with them. Instead of disposing of them, consider trying one of the alternative uses for buttons.

Take a bunch of your buttons that are relatively the same size and are complimentary colors of each other. Take a piece of stringing cord and put the buttons on one by one. Do this on a flat surface to make sure the buttons do not come off the end of the cord. After you have slid all of your buttons on the string, tie the two ends tightly together.

If you have young children, extra buttons are a great way to teach them how to do their math. The buttons are good for counting, multiplication, addition, subtraction and various other areas of math that children learn in elementary school. Make sure to keep the buttons out of reach of the children when you are not helping them as some kids could ingest them and choke.

Crafts with buttons can be an easy way to put together new artwork and use up your old buttons in the process. Consider gluing buttons with wood glue onto the top of a small table, then covering the entire top with a piece of glass. It is an interesting piece to look at while you are doing work instead of the top of a plain table. You can also form the old buttons into a work of art. Get a blank canvas and glue the buttons on into any shape, picture or pattern that you like. It would especially look nice in a child’s room. Instead of a generic piece of artwork, you have one that you put together yourself.

While you may think you cannot do much with old buttons, they have quite a few alternative uses. Instead of disposing of them, keep them to reuse them in the future. They can end up being quite useful.