On the Button (updated!)

Keryn is our Daring Cardmakers Darer of the week and she said:

I know you've all got buttons stashed away somewhere, whether they've been purchased at a cardmaking store or you thriftily snipped them off DH's old shirt. I'd like you to find those buttons and use them somewhere on a card. They can be real buttons, craft shop buttons, die cut buttons, faux buttons or another type of button, surprise us all.

Don’t forget to come back when you've made your card to leave us a comment and your Blog link and we’ll come over to check out your creations. You can still join in the fun if you don’t have a Blog. Just send a pic/scan of your creation to the team at daringcardmakers@hotmail.co.uk and we’ll add it to our gallery for all to see.

There are some gorgeous cards from our fab design team to see on the blog, and we're very happy to have not only the usual NZ, Aussie and UK contingent, but also cards from Germany - from our latest, very talented Guest Designer , Rein, and from Sylvie who's kindly stayed on for another week and adds a French flavour to the blog. Please pop along and see the cards, and visit our personal blogs for more info.

I use buttons quite a lot in my cardmaking so I like to make things a bit harder for myself and think beyond the obvious when this sort of dare comes in.
I had a couple of ideas but somehow managed to leave it till the last minute so idea 2 didn't quite happen as I'd have hoped.
Here's the first card I made

For my extra complication I decided that my buttons should actually work to open the card. So first I made a card with folds on both sides, the left side is narrowerer than the other and the right side overlaps it a little.
I added the buttons on a seperate narrow piece of card, tied on with various fibres.
Another seperate strip of card hides the tatty ends of the button-loops on the left hand side.

Papers are Chloe's Closet
Ribbon, fibres and buttons from my stash
Lettering is made on the Robo

I think I've managed to get a better pic of how the card works now:


Card 2 - got there eventually!
My second plan to make life more difficult was to make some buttons from shrink plastic. Not only that, but I decided to see if I could cut them out with the Robo! Well, I was already planning to buy a new blade so thought it was worth a go. It works, you do need to cut through twice, and use the red nobbly thing, and I think that really only simple shapes would cut properly, but how fab to be able to cut flowers, squares and circles without my usual wobbly-scissor technique! I made these buttons from one sheet of plastic, they are all quite big as you can see. I wasn't happy with the colours though and didn't really have time to muck about making more. So I had to go BRIGHT yet again. As usual I cooked my SP in the oven then as I'd been using up some of the frosted SP - I don't like this stuff and won't buy it again, the finish is really quite dull-looking so I added some glittery embossing powder and UTEE and took the heat gun to it - the big round button and the square one next to it on the photo were treated this way, the other square one is the one on the card.

These papers are from one of the Prima paper packs that I've really struggled with - I think this may be the first card I've managed to make with any of the Prima papers. All the ribbon from Ribbon Oasis, the flowers are from Dunelm Mills and the chipboard one is from Caroline the Chipboard Queen at Bubbly Funk.......

I won't be able to use this card as I was in such a hurry and a tizz trying to get it done that I managed to fold the blank inside out - so my printed details are on the inside.....not only that but I stuck it all on the wrong way round too!

oooops, where's the roll-eyes, I'm a noggin emoticon when you need it?