Haberdashery Heaven

Few things in life make me happier than haberdashery, and everything in this photo makes me rub my hands together with glee.

However, I seldom really know what to do with the yards of ribbon and endless beads and buttons that I've amassed over the years. Today I decided to try and make earrings.

Now, there is one item on this table that I have learnt to be wary of, and that's superglue. I am more or less banned from using it at work following an unfortunate incident with a colleague's phone, and another unfortunate incident with the same poor colleague's desk. But since I once witnessed my father accidentally glue his finger to the ceiling, I figure it's in my genes.

Fearing the gluing, I turned to my next nemesis - sewing. I suck at sewing. But in this instance it was necessarily merely to attach pieces of ribbon together - not to create a neat masterpiece. The result is shown below. At which point my husband entered, raised an eyebrow and wisely decided not to comment. It looked a bit better when I added a button. A bit... not a lot.

I then found covered buttons which I'd bought in a fabulous shop on the old quay in Plymouth. (Allowing me to tip a whole litre jar full of buttons onto the counter was a brave move on the part of the shop owner. It's literally a miracle I'm not still there!). These had awkward plastic fixings to the reverse so out came the trusty Stanley knife. There are no photos of this step; I can't hold a button, a sharp knife and a camera. However, the fact that I'm typing this should reassure you that no fingers were lost. They nearly were when I tried to take the back of an old metal British Rail button, but that's another story!

So, an hour or so later we end up with these. Mixed results (and appalling presentation, for which I apologise) but I think the next ones will be better. Once I've got some decent card to display them on (and can photograph them properly in a room that isn't as dark as midwinter - come back sunshine!) then I think they'll look cracking.