How to make a button bouquet in an empty cotton reel

A painted cotton reel with buttons on wire to look like a bouquet of flowers

I can’t believe how easy it is to make a sweet little button bouquet ornament in an old cotton reel. I had the most fun making this!

Today I’m joining some of my creative friends to bring you the Sustainable Pinterest Challenge. This challenge is all about having a look through your Pinterest Boards and picking out something you’d like to try and then giving it a go, putting a sustainable or eco friendly, upcycling spin on it.

This month our theme is “Welcome Spring” so I picked this button bouquet in a salt shaker as my inspiration. I’ve since seen another similar idea from Artsy Fartsy Mama which you might like to check out too.

My total cost for this project was a big fat ZERO! Don’t you love it when that happens? I already had everything I needed, mostly bits left over from other projects. Not throwing things away really does come in handy sometimes! I didn’t have a salt shakers but I’ve been on the lookout for ways to use the many plastic cotton reels or spools that I get from all the sewing I do so this worked perfectly. Back in December I made some table place name settings from some empty cotton reels, now with this project I’m on a roll using that box of empty cotton reels I seem to add to more than I take away from!

To make a Button Bouquet in a Cotton Reel you will need:

Buttons - pretty flower shaped buttons are nice if you have them, but regular buttons work too.
Wire - floristry wire or craft wire. I just found a roll in my stash so I’m not sure exactly what thickness it is.
A empty cotton reel/spool, mine are the waste product of my sewing of course but you can buy them here.
Spray paint
A scrap of pretty paper
Hot Glue Gun and Glue
Letter stamps and ink (optional)

How to prepare a cotton reel base

Start by removing any labels from the cotton reel and then spray painting it in the colour of your choice. I had some lovely yellow paint left over from this little table update (that I did 7 years ago - I told you I never throw anything away! )

Making the button bouquet

Next make your button bouquet. Exactly how you do this depends on your wire. My wire was pretty thin so I needed to double it up to make it strong enough to hold the weight of the buttons but if yours is thicker you may not need to.

Cut a length of wire, I found about 6 or 7 inches was about right (15 - 18cm). Thread a button on to the wire about an inch and the twist the wire to secure the button.

I then folded the wire in half and twisted it all the way along. Use a little of the wire to form a leaf shape if you like.

Repeat until you have enough button flowers for your bouquet. You can double the buttons up if you like with a small one on top of a larger one.

Once the paint is dry on the cotton reel cut a strip of patterned paper to fit your cotton reel and stamp or write a word or message. Or leave it plain of course, the word is an optional extra. Attach the paper strip with a little glue.

My cotton reel was a solid plastic one but if yours has gaps in the top you might want to cover them with paper or card too - I explain how to do that in my tutorial for cotton reel table place settings.

Assembling a wire button bouquet decoration

If you have a special hot glue mat or some baking parchment paper put the cotton reel on that, otherwise just put it on a piece of scrap paper, then fill the hole in the middle of the cotton reel with hot glue. Poke the wire button flowers into the hot glue. Hot glue doesn’t take long to set so pop them in quite quickly. Don’t worry too much how you are arranging them, just bung them in whilst the glue is hot and soft. You can arrange them by bending the wires one the glue has set. Don’t pick the cotton reel up as you poke the flowers in or the hot glue might drip out of the bottom.

If you used a hot glue mat or parchment paper you should find the cotton reel lifts off easily once the hot glue sets, if you used scrap paper you will probably find you have a little bit of paper stuck underneath but that’s ok as no one sees that anyway!

A pastel coloured bouquet made of buttons

That’s it, isn’t it cute? Bend the wires to arrange your button bouquet and it’s ready. Use your little cotton reel button bouquet in your Spring decorating, pop it on a shelf or as part of a vignette. You could write or stamp a phrase like “Welcome Spring” or make a whole load of them and add just one letter on each one with a sticker to spell a word when they are displayed in a row.

Now let’s check out what Pinterest inspired recycling or upcycling ideas my fellow creative bloggers have some up with for their sustainable pinterest challenge.