I've got the button! And then some. One of my strongest memories as a girl was playing with my mother's button box. It contained hundreds of buttons - big and small, old and new. As a little girl I would sort, stack, string, - or just run my fingers through and rattle them. I loved the feel and sound of them. When I was home sick, and Mother wanted to distract me from whatever ailed me, she would bring out special buttons - a wool covered one from her first tailored blazer, rhinestone studded ones from prom dresses, buttons from her father's dress shirts - and tell me a story.
Over the years we raided the box for chips when playing cards, to replace lost board game pieces, to use as money for doll hospitals or frontier villages in the yard. The sparkly ones were dress up jewelry strung on pipe cleaners for rings or string for necklaces. Some appeared on Halloween costumes, both mine and my children's. A few
even ended up on clothes.
