OK Buttons!
You all know what a button lover I am. Well, when my friend Jenni moved away (sniffle) to Oklahoma this past August, she soon sent me this page from her local electrical coop magazine:
If you click on the photo to make it big, you'll see that the third paragraph down is an ad by a woman who said she was looking for people to participate in a button exchange. I'd never done a button exchange before, so I decided to give it a try.
Thus began a small shower of fat envelopes in my mailbox, each containing four buttons from mostly Oklahoma ladies! We've managed to exchange anywhere from one to three months now, depending on the person, so I have a bit of variety already. It's fun to choose button treasures to send based upon each participants likes or dislikes -- though most have said they had no preference at all! Along the way we send a newsy little letter, so it feels like when I was a kid and had pen pals!
I thought you might like to see some of what I've received so far:
This lady (above) told me her button stash comes from her husband's grandmother.
These (above) came from a woman who decided not to participate, after all, but wanted to send along a couple of old buttons anyway with her note saying so.
These (above) came from a lady in her 80's who called me one morning out of the blue, to chat.
These (above) came from the lady who wrote the ad.
These (above) are from a lady who belongs to her local chapter of the National Button Society.
These (above) came from a lady who always sends her buttons with a hand made card.
It's been fun, and also a real learning experience. I've learned to be sure to make my desires clear, to help guide my fellow exchangers in their choice of what to send me. I've learned about the extra cost for mailing something that must be hand-stamped, and the necessity of reinforcing the envelopes with tape. And I've learned the importance of record keeping, what with all these buttons going back and forth, the memory fails much more quickly than you'd think!
Maybe some of my blog regulars and I could set up a button exchange one of these days? If interested, leave a comment and I'll try to put one together for this Spring!
If you click on the photo to make it big, you'll see that the third paragraph down is an ad by a woman who said she was looking for people to participate in a button exchange. I'd never done a button exchange before, so I decided to give it a try.Thus began a small shower of fat envelopes in my mailbox, each containing four buttons from mostly Oklahoma ladies! We've managed to exchange anywhere from one to three months now, depending on the person, so I have a bit of variety already. It's fun to choose button treasures to send based upon each participants likes or dislikes -- though most have said they had no preference at all! Along the way we send a newsy little letter, so it feels like when I was a kid and had pen pals!
I thought you might like to see some of what I've received so far:
This lady (above) told me her button stash comes from her husband's grandmother.
These (above) came from a woman who decided not to participate, after all, but wanted to send along a couple of old buttons anyway with her note saying so.
These (above) came from a lady in her 80's who called me one morning out of the blue, to chat.
These (above) came from the lady who wrote the ad.
These (above) are from a lady who belongs to her local chapter of the National Button Society.
These (above) came from a lady who always sends her buttons with a hand made card.It's been fun, and also a real learning experience. I've learned to be sure to make my desires clear, to help guide my fellow exchangers in their choice of what to send me. I've learned about the extra cost for mailing something that must be hand-stamped, and the necessity of reinforcing the envelopes with tape. And I've learned the importance of record keeping, what with all these buttons going back and forth, the memory fails much more quickly than you'd think!
Maybe some of my blog regulars and I could set up a button exchange one of these days? If interested, leave a comment and I'll try to put one together for this Spring!
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Ann Flowers