Shannon Lucas
Statement necklaces featuring vintage buttons and chains
I have been making handicrafts as gifts for family and friends for decades – simple beading, knitting and sewing projects.
Several years back, I purchased a necklace made of buttons at a gallery at the beach in Florida. My mom loved it and asked me to make one for her. On her next visit to Asheville, we went together to pick out the buttons and some other baubles from the bead store. Shortly after that, my mom unearthed her and my grandmother’s button tins from storage and gifted them to me. The buttons were mostly mid-century plastic buttons, so many intriguing colors and shapes.
Button necklaces became my new gift item for a couple of years, and I even sold a few upon request. Then one day, browsing in a local antique store, I stumbled on a large stash of Victorian shell, metal, and glass buttons. I spent hours in a reverie, handling and looking at those little works of art; carved, molded and inlayed in such painstaking detail. This was the beginning of serious love affair with vintage buttons, especially those made of natural materials such as shell, vegetable ivory, wood and metal. These buttons introduced a whole new level of quality to my necklaces, which now also include vintage chain of all different gauges.
I especially love incorporating buttons that include elements of Asian design, which connects back to my college and subsequent years, during which I majored in Asian Studies and then lived in Japan for two years. I hope you will enjoy my little assemblages of shiny objects from days past.
