Treasures Worth More than their Weight in Gold

When I was growing up in the house with nine kids and grandma living in the back bedroom, Mom used to have an ugly old, dented tin. That metal tin was her secret "treasure" chest and it held so many itty-bitty beautiful bits-and-pieces she called "treasures".

But those treasures of hers weren't worth any money.

Still, I used to love to pull out that old tin and rummage through it. I don't remember what I was looking for because it was only filled with old buttons. But I believed it was a treasure chest, filled with pirates gold of colored glass and make-believe doubloons.

See, Mom didn't believe in throwing anything away. I guess she would have been one of the original hoarders only she never had much to hoard. So it wasn't a problem.

I mean, when all you're hoarding is an old tin of buttons, it doesn't take up much room in a house.

Some days, when I came home from school, Mom used to call me out to the kitchen table to talk with her while she made dinner.

She'd cut, chop and dice while I'd sit beside her cutting buttons off our old worn-out clothing. Then I'd slip those little beauties into our "treasure chest". When I'd "saved" all the buttons then I'd cut the fabric into scraps for quilting. Grandma used those quilting blocks to make blankets.

Our rescued buttons went into that old tin to be used at a later date, when a button popped off and rolled away, never to be found again.Then Mom would call me out to the kitchen again and I'd pull out the treasure tin. It was easy to spend hours searching through the treasures for just the "right" button to replace the renegade runaway...or rollaway.

That old tin gave me a love for re-purposing, recycling and reusing...buttons.

Even today, I still love to walk down the aisles at the fabric store and gaze at the beautiful buttons (I know I live an exciting life) and sometimes I buy a few--buttons I might never find a purpose for.

"Sew" crafting friends aren't surprised, at Christmas, if they find a gift of beautiful buttons, fabric and/or yarn tucked away inside their gift.

Maybe that seems odd to most people, but I still think of those beautiful buttons as tiny treasures. Little beautiful baubles, to me they look like gemstones or charms and I love them all.

Tomorrow, I'm thinking of working on a button wreath for Valentine's Day. See the one above. I found it on Pinterest and fell in love.

If you want to see the instructions for this Cute as a Button Wreath, just pop over to this site to check it out.
The estimated cost of making this Button Wreath, if you don't have a tin to hunt through, is $10.00. But I can guarantee you, if you sit with your sons and daughters and make this wreath, together, the memories you'll create will be worth more than their weight in gold. They'll be PRICELESS :D

How 'bout you do you have any secret "treasures" worth more than their weight in gold? I sure do. And aren't these the little things that LOVE is all about.