The Colorado State Button Show, part 1

I entered a competitive tray on Friday at the Colorado State Button Show.  It was a real experience for me, a newbie to the club and to the officialness that is button classification.  In a nutshell, here's what I had to do: assemble 24 buttons of medium and large size (10 large, 10 medium, 4 free choice) that depicted items within the National Button Society's classifications 17-20, which included animals, plant life, and other assorted, specific categories such as sports, music, etc.  The best assortment would win one of 3 prizes, and to have a winning assortment meant you had to have a wide variety of materials, decorative finishes, and embellishments on your buttons.

Cherub, pierced metal

Dog being walked by man, wood

Japanese man, celluloid wafer with metal embellishment

Man playing guitar, buffed synthetic polymer

Horn with Mother of Pearl and Steel inlay

Wolf looking at bird, pierced metal with fabric background

 Stag leaping over dog, blue glass with four way shank

 Grouse and chick, metal (copper, I think)

There is a very specific way you have to arrange the buttons on a board of a specific size, labeled in a particular way, and then which then has to be inserted into a specific kind of plastic sleeve.  I had attended a workshop on how to prepare these boards, and, I had contact with ladies from different button clubs who had offered all their help.  I had the resources to get it right.  I was up very late the night before the judging making sure it was correctly labeled.

I hated the way the tray ended up looking, with all the writing on it -- it just looked messy to me.  Also, there was such a variety of subject matter, I thought it looked disorganized.  I probably should have done a different competition (there were 25 to choose from) where there was one unified color or theme.

So, early Friday morning I drove to Denver to drop off the tray and, as I'd gone all that way, offered to stay and volunteer if they needed any extra help with the judging. 

 The stacks of trays awaiting judging

They did, so I had the privilege to help out with distributing trays, counting things, recording scores, and otherwise drinking in the studious atmosphere as the judges pored over the trays.  I also got to help judge one tray, by acting as a clerk with an experienced judge.  It was a fantastic learning experience!

But...it all ended badly for me.  I found out Saturday morning that my tray had been disqualified.  In all my zeal to collect a variety of buttons, I strayed from the rules and included two buttons that were a smidgen smaller than what they call "medium" (they measure all of them.)  It was such a rookie mistake!  I was crushed.

There's my tray, above, second from the left in the photo, and the three winning trays.  Do you see the little red dots on the tray below mine?  Those are called "measles" -- the dot shows which buttons were disqualified for not meeting criteria.  When your tray is disqualified, then, it's called "getting measled."  Our trays remain up there at the show through today and then a friend from the Colorado Springs club is going to collect mine and bring it home for me, as I didn't attend today (Sunday.)

I need to take some photos, and then tomorrow I'll post the buttons I purchased at the show -- stay tuned!