button box does anyone still have them?

I have a button box which contains so many memories as in addition to my own it also contains my two grans' buttons as well as my mum's and auntie's so it is quite a family treasure box. There are so many different kinds of buttons made from very different materials so it is really interesting.
DC, nieces and nephews and DGC all loved sorting out the colours and sizes and even weighed them with their toy scales, adding up the different weights and learning to divide them etc. It used to occupy them for hours!
Recently my DGC sorted them all out and bagged them up in those small sealable plastic bags so they are 'viciously' organised nowadays. I think I preferred them in a big muddle!

I have vast numbers. I rarely do any sewing.

I have a button box too but often need 5 or 6 the same for a naby cardi so end up buying more!
I also have a ribbon tin, full of the thin coloured ribbon cut off shoulders of garments as I cant bear them
Any brilliant ideas for using them

I love buttons and I too have my own tin. I confess to buying little packets of buttons off Amazon (just because they are pretty!) sad aren't I?!

I have two pink tins for my buttons, on the base is written ' Durex diaphragm' I used to work in a Family Planning Clinic!

Yes I have one, I remember Mums button box when we were little, the actual tin was lovely too. Dont use mine much these days, but it is handy to have "in case"

I had one until very recently (we are moving next year and I am decluttering). My DD, on a recent visit, was searching for a button and she was amazed to find covered buttons that I made for her school dresses! ( She will be 40 shortly!)

Yes I have one and I have my mother's button box. I will still buy buttons, especially old ones, if I see some I like.

I asked my daughter tonight if she has a button box and the answer was no she hasn't. I asked what she would do if she lost a button off a blouse or jacket, and she said she wouldn't wear it again! We had quite a discussion about it but she does remember playing with my buttons. A sign of the times I guess

Yes I have a large collection of buttons in a wooden box that belonged to my grandmother and then my mother, including some off her WRNS uniform from WW2.

That's a good idea cayuga123 - in fact I have sometimes bought different coloured ones for the DGD's cardigans to pick up the colours in the random coloured yarn.

However, it is a white baby cardigan - and I did manage to find 3 matching white ones when I had a better look today. All finished and ready to post off, it was nice to knit something small for a change.

Jalmina.. I knit for my GC and find that I use odd coloured buttons to finish off trendy coloured Aran sweaters and my best babies cardigan had odd coloured buttons, but the same style, and in the colours matching those of the hungry caterpillar. The baby had three baby outfits from Next in various designs of the caterpillar. The cardigan has been much admired.

Yes I have one that has WW2 buttons in it as well as many more that I have gathered over the years.We had to make do and mend during the war years so if anything was worn out, but the buttons still in good fettle, the buttons were re-used on knitted garments and the garment cut up to make a pegged rug.

I used to love going through my grandma's button box (there was a gold ring in it with a green stone, turned out to be worth something although not a huge amount). My button box is so big it is difficult to close. Some buttons bring back memories of cardigans my late mother knitted for me as a child. There's a separate container for pearl buttons.

Good grief, you mean people might actually throw potentially useful things away?! Of course I have a button box - a 4 litre ice cream container which is about 3/4 full. The price of buttons these days it's worth having a search through first before having to buy one.
Not long ago I wanted some special buttons for a complicated jacket I had knitted so decided I had to buy some more. The buttons cost nearly as much as the wool. Ridiculous! Keep the button box and long may it survive.

I saved some fancy buttons from cardigans that my mum knitted for my daughter when she was small. When my daughter married a few years ago we made her a wooden horseshoe and decorated it with little things, including some of the buttons, that I had kept over the years. It made it very special and she has it still.

Yes Mums and MIL's Big sweet tins .My DDs used to love playing with them and am sure learnt colours etc that way
Also have huge collection of press studs etc
I've failed to pass on the skills though .DD2 said to me mournfully recently (I'd just sewed a buton on for her)' What am I going to do when you're gone? 'I might add said DD is a midwife and does suturing ..
Think I might give them both a tutorial at Christmas ...

It's amazing just how many of us have got button boxes or tins.

I also have a biscuit tin full, inherited from Mil. There are some pretty mother of pearl ones among them and quite a few retro ones.

I must get them out and have a look through.
No good asking daughter if she wants them, as she hasn't got any spare room for anything so I expect they will languish in the shed.

I don't have a button phobia, and I like the lovely old buttons, but if there's an alternative, I prefer to use it, especially for children. Velcro, poppers, and for the baby cardigan someone mentioned: ribbons to tie.

I have my grandmother's button box. I took great delight in choosing pink buttons from it to finish a cardigan I had knitted for my first GD.

Ah yes ! wonderful memories ..used to spend hours with my mum's button box (I recall it was wooden, with a lid that closed with a click and on rainy days out it would come for me to play with ! When my DD was growing upm she was a very neat and tidy child, and one day in a shop she asked me to buy her a packet of those little plastic bags with press closings at the top .....into which she sorted all my various buttons, labelled the bags with sticky labels ....36 years later I am still finding neatly labelled bags of buttons ,,,,plus several more that I have simply thrown into the bottom of my large sewing box ! ,,,and then wonder why I can never find a spare (only in those little plastic bags !) ..

Yes, absolutely and full of memories. Has anyone read Alison Uttley's 'The Button Box'? Wonderful, evocative (fairly short) essay, if I remember correctly.

I have one. I used to love sorting out the buttons for my Mother, so I allowed my children to sort out mine. They spent hours with my buttons.

I have one. It's a round raffia box full of buttons from my daughters childhood items plus shirt buttons etc. I raided it recently to use little blue boat buttons for a baby cardigan I knitted for DD2's friends son. She sent me a photo of him wearing it and the buttons looked really cute. The box has survived several house moves

Yes two or them, I keep any buttons I can retrieve, have my mothersandgrandmothers. Plus I search out vintage buttons,lace, ribbons.