NOW you can have the latest fashion statement. Have your BUTTONS match your NAIL POLISH. Yes, you heard me. Now you too can have brown nail polish and brown buttons (see the bottom row, also yellow and of course red, and red with sparkles). You can even add a sparkle if its that kind of outfit. Make that ho hum looking sweater jump up and shout with a gold or silver star with a midnight blue background (see the middle row and the top row to the right). Or you can have a silver star button and a midnight blue button and a a silver star button with a midnight blue surround. The possibilities are endless. Did I mention that you can tie the whole outfit together with EARRINGS. Just make a couple extra button and glue them onto an earring back and if you didn't remove the holes from the file, no problem just apply a dab of NAIL POLISH to the two holes and glue on a rhinestone. That is if anyone is going to inspect your earrings close enough to see the holes there anyway. Well, you never know. And anyway if it matches the design just plug the holes with NAIL POLISH of the same colour as say the bear. (middle row on the right) Now you have got to love the bear. I painted him brown with NAIL POLISH and then I took the white NAIL POLISH (you have got to love this stuff) and started painting the area above him white. It just took off and I liked it so much that I kept going but what I wanted to do was paint the bottom WHITE and the top MIDNIGHT BLUE with NAIL POLISH. So when I do that one I will add it to this instructable.

Besides have you ever seen buttons that are very interesting to look at, apart from keeping your sweater closed, but the design does not appeal to your interests. Well never fear, you too can have interesting buttons and it is so easy if you have access to a laser cutter.

Step 1: How to Make the Buttons

You can use scraps of plywood left over from other projects like I did. I used the left over pieces of .188 thick pieces of plywood.

I designed these buttons for the LASER CUTTER.

I made them 2cm or .75 inches in diameter. On the CorelDraw x7, on a new document, using F7 to form a circle 2 cm or .75 inch in diameter. Set the LINE WIDTH to hairline.

Again using F7 to form another circle apart from the first circle. This circle should be about .07 inch.

Then COPY this circle and MOVE the copy about .07 over from the original small circle.

CHOOSE both circles and set the width to hairline. MOVE the two circles with their separation to the centre of the first larger circle.

GROUP the three circles together. IMPORT the outline design of your choice and set the line width to 1 or 1.5.

Centre this outline design on the button and group all of the parts together. Set the speed and power according to your laser cutter. Choose the combine setting and the thickness of the material you are using.

I did one button in 1 inch size and then one in .75 size and when I determined that my settings were what I wanted, I then copied the button in the size I wanted several times and printed the buttons.

button horse .75 inch ok.cdr
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Step 2: Now to the Fun Part - Bring on Your Creativity

I used a few different methods of colouring the button other than nail polish and I will mention them later because they too were fun.

This is the collection of nail polish that I used in this instructable.

I painted a pony white with sparkles on and around. I have already bored you with my stuff about the bear. I did like that one. I also like the star. I painted it with silver NAIL POLISH (okay I'll stop that now) but I forgot to go back with the Midnight Blue NP. The gold NP was nice but brightened up with a couple of layers of clear coat. I liked the yellow and could see possibilities for that one. I painted the Midnight Blue button with sparkles. You can see how the red looks very different with sparkles (they come in different versions.) The combinations and permutations are endless especially if you have a large collection of NP. Check out the sales in the NP department and don't forget the Dollar Store for different colours.

Ok, some of the other things I tried were watercolour crayons (you must cover them with a varnish when they are dry or if you were to, say, cry, your tears could cause the colour to run. The 2 buttons I tried with the crayons are in the third picture with the glow in the dark button. The glow in the dark paint colour was sort of yellow but very pale and the glow in the dark part was also very pale. I have had better luck with a variety of glow in the dark paint that was without any other colour provided and it glowed much brighter. It is worth shopping around for a good paint and right now you have a couple of months before HALLOWEEN. Buttons glowing in the dark. You don't have to restrict the buttons to closing sweaters at halloween. Picture a scary cat sewn on somewhere that will appear in the dark.

Now the last picture is another favourite. I have several fabric paints and of course I seem to be fond of blue. First I made sure that the button would take the colour nicely and then I stencilled a design in the same colour. You could even dye the fabric and the buttons the same colour or the buttons could be dyed a lighter colour than the cloth.