Chipboard Buttons

One of the nice ladies(who's name coincidentally is also Heather) over at ScrapCentral posted a tutorial on making these fun chipboard buttons. What's really great about them is you can use scraps of patterned paper from your current project to make coordinating embellishments. I love not having to spend time trying to match colours and patterns. Here is my first attempt at making buttons. Below the picture is my 'how-to'.


What you'll need:
- chipboard
- circle punch or cutter
- adhesive
- scraps of patterned paper
- sand paper
- hole punch (crop-a-dile)
- embossing pad & UTEE
- heat gun

I used my Creative Memories circle cutter to cut the small round buttons. It won't cut all the way through the thick chipboard so I had to use my scissors to finish the job. The square button is a scrap from one of my chipboard sheets.

Glue the patterned paper to your chipboard. When it is completely dry trim the paper close to the chipboard. Use the sandpaper to neaten up the edges (I use one of those Bo Bunny sanding files) I also inked the edges of my buttons with my brown ink.

Punch two holes equal distance from the sides. The crop-a-dile makes this easy with it's slide ruler, but it's pretty easy to eyeball it :)

Use your embossing pad on the top of the button. Sprinkle UTEE on, shake off excess and then melt with the heat gun. Do 5 or 6 layers of UTEE to get a nice shiney coverage for your button. The button is light and will blow away on you when you point that heat gun at it, so I used my paper piercer through one of the button holes to keep it in place on the desk while I melted the UTEE