New Buttons

My dress, being a store sample (and a heck of a deal at that!) arrived missing some of the fabric-covered buttons from the back. A very unique feature of the gown is the cafe colored sash, which is connected in the back by buttons in the same color. So, there are ivory buttons, and cafe buttons.

(<--- what the dress should look like with the correct buttons, not my actual dress)

Unfortunately, 6 of the 8 missing buttons are of the cafe colored variety, and extremely difficult to find and replace. I contacted the gown manufacturer about purchasing replacement buttons and they said that because the gown was discontinued, they no longer carry the cafe colored buttons.

My bridesmaids and I shopped around at a locally owned fabric store that has a large bridal fabrics and notions section. Of course, they did not have any cafe colored buttons, but did have a package of ivory buttons that exactly matched the ones on my dress. This took care of the missing ivory ones, but not colored ones.

One option was to have a local seamstress cover 6 of the buttons with the cafe silk taffeta, probably at a cost of $5.00-$6.00 a piece, and more time to find the fabric for it. Another option was to simply use the ivory buttons on the sash, and hope that the contrast would be acceptable.

Then I thought about school projects from 3rd grade: using tea to create 'old paper' from the days of Columbus. 'Why can't I just dye the buttons using tea?'

Since the package of buttons had extras, I decided to start with 3. Worst case scenario, it wouldn't work and I'd simply use ivory buttons. Best case scenario, I'd die 3 more and sew them on!

I used plain old black pekoe tea and boiling water. Throughout the die process, I stirred the buttons (which floated at first!) occasionally to make sure that the color would distribute evenly.

They only needed about 10 minutes in the tea, and while the color doesn't exactly match the taffeta is definitely close and looks great. Once I get the dress cleaned and the buttons sewn on I will post again!