Button Floozies

Today I opened my email to find a Pinterest message that someone had re-pinned a picture from my Beautiful Buttons board. I checked out her board, which had a picture posted from a place called  The Button Art Museum in Vancouver Canada. I couldn't quite figure out how the website worked, but finally realized that clicking on the little thumbprints under the first large picture brought up different art. Then I noticed that the owners had their own Pinterest site,  BAM . It's button heaven, so check it out. (But only if you have lots of time!)

I am piggybacking Autena's recent post regarding  The Pearl Button Capital of the World. My friend Tara and I had the pleasure and opportunity in our research of pearl button manufacturing to privately meet with the Pearl Button Museum. Please click here for my blog article.  If you enjoy pearl buttons and the history of them, may I suggest reading Shell Games by Jeffrey S. Copeland.  I am not sure if The Pearl Button Museum carries this book in their gift shop; however, it is carried on Amazon.com .    The Muscatine Journal's review of Shell Games can be found here .  Thanks Autena for sharing your recent post and interest in The Pearl Button Capital of the World! Your post sparked me to recall how much I enjoyed my museum research visit and the book Shell Games.  

I came across this site the other day as I was researching some button cards to post in my Etsy shop.  It was so interesting, I immediately thought of sharing my find with the Button Floozies! Muscatine History and Industry Center It bills itself as the Home of the Pearl Button Museum. How intriguing! It is located in Muscatine, Iowa, of all places--population  approximately 21,000. When I looked up the town (I'm big on research, can you tell?), I found out, via Wikipedia, that it is the only city in the U.S. with that name. Here's another interesting fact: It turns out that the shell buttons were produced so prodigiously there because of the Mississippi River mussels. They were thick and hearty and could withstand the machine cutting.   The buttons were produced there from 1905 to around the early 1960s. Click the above link and you can find out why they eventually ceased production. Here is the Pearl Button Queen of 1946!

When I wrote my last post for you, on Diana Epstein , I was searching for links to historical collections of buttons.  I found this one and thought it deserved a post of its very own. So here it is.  Basically I have put in the word 'buttons' in the search of the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.   This is the result. What lovely things appeared before my eyes. I haven't added the photos here. One because I do not have permission, and two because I think it will be fun for you to follow the link. So have you done an online search of a local or national museum? I think it would be good to try. Alix. Bigbluebed .