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- 8,140
- Location
- The Gorge Area, Oregon
Loml got half a sheeps wool (another one anyway! ) and is in process of combing it out and is planning to spin it and then weave it to make a jacket. I figure that'll be done sometime before 2020 if we're lucky. Anyway she was looking at buttons for it and saw some "branch buttons" which are just rounds cut off of a branch and then have a few holes drilled into them. Commercially they go for $15-20 a set (where a set is between 4 and 8 depending on the size) or about $2-4 EACH. Well they didn't look to hard to make.. and they aren't!
Front to back:
Ended up with a bit over 30 of each kind (around 100 total). I think I have maybe 5 hours total in all of them and that was with hand cutting them (japanese razor saw - left a nice clean surface so I didn't even sand some which left an interesting "rustic" surface). If you bandsawed them off with a clean blade it would be zip zip. To drill the holes I made a V block and clamped it to the drill press so that you could press the button up into the V drill one side, rotate 180 and drill the other (I cut the branched by hand so.. hybrid woodworking ).
I suspect that these could be a decent seller for you folks that do the craft shows and farmers markets (based on what I've seen you'd occasionally just sell them all to someone who was into buttons).
I've seen ones people have made from redbud branches and those look really sharp with lots of nice color in them.
Front to back:
- rosemary - sanded, rattle can spray lacquer. Our old rosemary plant bit the biscuit during the cold last year, this is what I salvaged from it. Nicer than I'd expected.
- mystery tree in the back yard - dried, sanded, walnut oil
- lilac branch - unsanded, BLO+turpentine, wait three weeks, rattle can spray lacquer. These are definitely my favorite so far.
Ended up with a bit over 30 of each kind (around 100 total). I think I have maybe 5 hours total in all of them and that was with hand cutting them (japanese razor saw - left a nice clean surface so I didn't even sand some which left an interesting "rustic" surface). If you bandsawed them off with a clean blade it would be zip zip. To drill the holes I made a V block and clamped it to the drill press so that you could press the button up into the V drill one side, rotate 180 and drill the other (I cut the branched by hand so.. hybrid woodworking ).
I suspect that these could be a decent seller for you folks that do the craft shows and farmers markets (based on what I've seen you'd occasionally just sell them all to someone who was into buttons).
I've seen ones people have made from redbud branches and those look really sharp with lots of nice color in them.