I love the look of fabric covered buttons! They can add formality to a fancy satin dress or create a whimsical look with bright prints. Sarafina's dress (shown above) is really cute with regular buttons, but the fabric covered ones definitely take it up a notch! Fabric covered buttons also save you the trouble of searching for the perfectly coordinating buttons -- you can use any of the fabrics from your project to make them match! I also like to use covered buttons for the centers of my fabric flowers. It gives them a soft, natural look.
And they're so easy to make! For today's tutorial, I will show you how.
There are many brands and sizes of fabric covered buttons available and I look for ones that come as a kit with the little pusher tool included. I bought this set at Walmart and it makes five buttons.
The first step is to cut out a circle of coordinating fabric that is twice the diameter of the button you're using. I am using a 1.5" button so I cut my circle to be 3" across. You can draw your own circle or download our template here, which includes the most common sizes of buttons. After your fabric circle is cut out, you are ready to move on.
Lay out the parts of your button kit in this order, as shown above.
You will start on the right by placing the fabric circle on top of the clear piece, as indicated by the red arrow.
Then use the third piece to press the fabric down into the clear piece, as shown above. Push it until it snaps into place.
Tuck the fabric edges down inside.
Then put the fourth piece on top of the fabric, making sure that the button shank is pointing up.
Place the final piece on top and use it to push down until the metal shank disc snaps into place.
If you turn over your plastic piece you will see the button inside. Pretty!
Carefully pop it out of the clear piece and you are done! How fun is that? Usually when I finish making my fabric buttons I want to make about twenty more. Try it out and you'll see what I mean!
Let's Create! ~ Kristen
