Button Imprint Stamp Tutorial

Again, I have a ton of buttons. When the kids want to do a project - it often involves buttons. I love that we have a big bin of buttons... I would have loved to have had something similar when I was a kid. They love to just play in the bin of buttons, but I like when I can come up with different ways of using them (other than treasure that gets scattered around the house as this seems to be their go-to idea).

So, today, I thought I would try out an idea I had a long time ago to make play dough stamps with buttons and spools. The idea came back to me after reading about the stamps that Her Cup Overfloweth posted last week.

My idea was similar, but didn't involve paint and included wooden spools that I had been collecting. The ones I made with the kids today use the plastic spools that I have an abundance of. Those wood ones have been hard to come by, so I'm saving some special buttons and the old wood spools to make my own double sided stamps. Perhaps one day I'll get around to making those and posting them.

Since this was a spur of the moment project, I used what I had on hand. But, if you plan this out better than I did, I would recommend a commercial grade adhesive... and time for the adhesive to dry. I apologize again for the photos that are turned - I have reported the problem again to blogger in the hopes that there will be a resolution to this ubber frustrating bug (three of my seven photos were rotated by blogger!).

Materials:

• Thread spools
• Buttons with interesting patterns (I avoided buttons with holes because I didn't want to have to fish the clay out of the hole)
• Super Glue

Step 1 - Choose fun and interesting buttons and pair them with an appropriate size spool. I found that smaller spools work best for the smaller buttons so that you don't get the imprint of the side of the spool in the clay.

Step 2 - Apply super glue to the back of the button or to the spoke part of the spool - press in place and allow to dry.

** I didn't allow mine to dry much and I used everyday Super Glue - some of the buttons didn't hold as well as others. I did find though, that given the proper cure time... they worked just fine. The kids however were a bit harder on them when pulling off the clay, so I would recommend a commercial grade glue for that reason alone **

Step 3 - Have Fun! Use them to imprint in clay (we used FIMO) or use them as stamps (although we did buttons that were rounded and those probably wouldn't work as well). I think these would be fun to make dough ornaments with. We made pendants - using a tooth to make a hole.

Funny side note - I decided that I was going to cut the cook time of the clay in half and use my toaster oven (I've done it before with success). This time, I forgot to turn down the temperature and ended up over cooking them. Who knew that some colors of over cooked FIMO clay turns translucent as it liquefies. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get them off the wax paper so most of the pendants that the kids made ended up in the trash. I removed the pumpkins right away though and those came out great (my picture didn't)- even with a little brown on the edges... a happy accident.

Also - these don't work as well with homemade play dough (haven't tried it with store bought) because of the consistence of the dough... they tend to stick to the buttons more than leave an imprint. I'm sure covering the button with some type of finish would help - but it's a bit too much work for me and so I just accept that it doesn't really work. If you find a way to make them work with play dough - I'd love to hear it!

Another tip - when using the stiffer clay such as FIMO, it's best to press the stamp into the clay, then peel the clay from the button stamp rather than pulling the stamp from the clay. Does that make sense? I just found it to work better this way - the images remained crisper and the button stamps held together better.

I hope to help the kids make some of their presents using these stamps. There are just so many possibilties!