How to Make Monogrammed Covered Button Jewelry Charms
Design handmade fabric-covered buttons with a vintage flair to create assorted pieces of jewelry like charm bracelets, pins and colorful pendants. Add your initials or the monogram of a loved one to the button covers as a decorative and meaningful touch to personalize the embellishments. The crafting technique is so simple, you'll be able to make button jewelry charms to adorn additional crafts like ribbon bookmarks, fabric tote bags and elastic headbands or create a set of buttons as a gift for a friend or family member.
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Things You'll Need
- Fabric
- Tailor's chalk or pencil
- Scissors
- Fabric paint pen, embroidery floss or iron-on patch
- Needle
- Thread
- Pliers
- Metal jump rings
- Bracelet or necklace
Instructions
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1
Place the piece of fabric you're going to use to cover the button face-down on your work surface. Put a button with a shank---a small post protruding from the back of the button with a hole through it that you'd use to sew the button onto a garment---face down on the fabric.
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2
Draw a circle around the button 1/2 inch out from the edge of the button with tailor's chalk or a pencil. Cut the circle out with sharp scissors.
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3
Flip the fabric over to add a monogram to the center. Draw the letter or letters with a fabric paint pen, stitch the shapes with embroidery floss or apply a small, letter-shaped iron-on patch---choose a method that suits your style and the size of the button you're using.
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4
Thread a sewing needle and knot the end of the thread. Do a running stitch around the fabric circle, 1/8 inch in from the edge---travel around the fabric by pushing the needle down through the fabric, drawing it back up, pushing it down again and continuing the process until you've gone all the way around the circle. Knot the thread and snip the excess with scissors.
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Put the fabric face down on the table and place the button face down in the center of the fabric. Grab the ends of the thread with your fingertips and pull them like drawstrings to cinch the edges of the fabric in around the button's shank. Tie the ends in a double knot; use scissors to trim the excess.
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Affix the monogrammed button charm to a charm bracelet by using pliers to "open" a metal jump ring. Thread the end of the jump ring through the hole in the button shank and a link on the bracelet, and then use the pliers to close the jump ring. You can also hang the fabric-covered button on a necklace by adding a jump ring to the button shank and threading the chain through the jump ring.
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Tips & Warnings
You can also use the button covering technique to add fabric to buttons without a shank on the back. To attach the flat buttons to jewelry, pass a 1-inch-long piece of 12-gauge craft wire up through one hole and back down another. Twist the ends of the wire together to create a tiny loop. Place a jump ring through the loop.
