I’m thrilled to announce that Susan Beal’s new craft book, Button It Up: 80 Amazing Vintage Button Projects for Necklaces, Bracelets, Embellishments, Housewares & More is available in stores as of yesterday! I received my contributor copies last week (or so? I can’t remember now!) and the book is gorgeous. The book has 80 projects in Susan’s signature simple style–each one lets the focus be on the unique buttons you choose to hilight. Every project is complemented with full page photography so you can soak up all of the pretty buttons contained in each one. Check out Susan’s Button it Up website and her main blog, West Coast Crafty for links to several places on the web where you can see more photos of the inside of the book and even enter to win a free copy. She also started this flickr group where you cans share pics of your vintage button stashes and of any projects you make that are inspired by the book.

And to toot my own horn just a little, I was one of the contributors to this fasten-ating (hahah, sorry) compendium of projects. I made a little button framed applique design on a $10 purse from Target.

I was really pleased with the way this came out, and it was a perfect way to use a smidgen of my birdie fabric in a way where I knew it’d be hanging around for a while.  Most of the yellow buttons came from my grandma’s stash– she had so  many tiny little pastel buttons, presumably from all those easter dresses she was making for me and my sisters.

We’re also celebrating the release of the book all month long at Craftstylish, so there’ll be new button projects posted almost every single day. My first went up this morning, and I had a lot of fun making it.

It’s a woven button coaster. The process is slow and semi crazy-making, but I love the result, and I love that you can use pretty basic buttons (like dress shirt buttons) to make such a pretty coaster. Check it out.