Discovering The Button Florist

This time last year, I had the pleasure of meeting Celia Barbieri, aka The Button Florist, who has a studio in the wonderfully boho River Arts District of Asheville, NC.  Celia is a ceramic artist--a potter who creates buttons imprinted with patterns from found objects and bits of nature from across the world. She combines these with vintage buttons to create whimsical button flowers and bouquets.

My first Button Florist bouquet was a gift for Valentine's Day.  I take it with me when I go on book signings for my novel, The Button Collector.  It helps spark interest and I like to think it brings me good luck!

The following pictures are from The Button Florist Website.  The first shows some of Celia's work in progress: 

Her Wallflower Series is fabulous!  Here's a cheerful creation in yellow: 

Close-up of a button flower:  

A grouping of white flowers . . . with Celia's studio companion and muse, Toot:  

Celia also creates dishes imprinted with vintage buttons, makes felt leaves from old sweaters, and does many more wonderful things with buttons of all types.  I love her artistic vision that focuses on old buttons and other found objects by upcycling them into something both beautiful and accessible.  I've enjoyed getting to know her and invite you to read more about her in this Button People Profile on my blog.  

Thanks for reading!  This is my first contribution to Button Floozies.  I'm a free-lance writer and author, and while I love the awesomeness of buttons in their own right, it was thinking about all the stories these buttons could tell that prompted me to write a novel based on a family's collection of discarded buttons.  Along the way, I stumbled upon the wonderful world of button collectors, button crafters and button artists.  I hope to share more of these discoveries here with you . . . as well as some button stories.